Pan-Yoruba socio-political organization, Afenifere, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to consider the insecurity situation in the country as a war situation that requires recalling retired officers to compliment efforts of existing security organs to halt the war.
The group in a release signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, said there is no more time to be wasted in being more honest, decisive and comprehensive in confronting the security situation if the country is to be prevented from going under.
It disclosed that apart from the bomb blasts that happened in Maiduguri on the day President Buhari visited, the Nigerian Immigration Services, also revealed in a letter to its border posts that terrorists from Mali planned to attack Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory.
While lamenting the spate of insecurity such as kidnapping, killing, arson and burning of vehicles conveying people from one place to another as happened recently on Kaduna highway, in Borno and Katsina States as well as the near daily occurrence of kidnapping in Ondo, Ekiti, Osun, Imo States, among others, it insisted that the President must come out openly to give an ultimatum of two weeks to those carrying arms illegally to lay down their arms.
According to the group, within the period, retired military officers should be encouraged to report at the military formations nearest to them with a view to reintegrating them back into the system.
"Needed weapons and incentives must be provided just as the intelligence units within the security organs be rejigged to weed out the fifth columnists in the military. Overtures should be made to certain powers that have control over our neighbouring countries from where terrorists infiltrate our country.
"Among such military powers that need to be consulted are France, United Kingdom, China, Russia, Germany, Israel and the United States of America. The rationale behind this is to seek for direct assistance in terms of logistics as well as for some of them, particularly France, to work on French-speaking neighbouring countries to help curtail insurgents using their territories to infiltrate Nigeria", he said.
Ajayi added that beyond seeking foreign help however, the federal government must be ready to be more genuinely committed to removing insurgency and related criminality from our land.
“This, it can do successfully, by halting treatment of bandits and terrorists with kid gloves, by genuinely providing needed equipment to the army and other security agencies, and by productively engaging the youths in ventures that would earn them a livelihood.
Above all, states and local governments that are willing should be allowed to have their own policing system up to the level of investigation and prosecution without let or hindrance", he stated.
