Buhari vows tougher actions against insurgents

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President Muhammadu Buhari has warned of tougher security measures in the country, especially in the North West and the North Central.

He spoke in Abuja yesterday at the meeting of the National Executive Committee of the All Progressives Congress.

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He said the efforts that resulted in relative peace in South South, and rescuing of North East from the hold of terrorists would be ramped up.

The president also promised further review of operations and strategy.

He admitted that the major security challenges had remained in the North Central and North West, saying “We are going to be very tough.’’

“I will like us to reflect on what the situation was before we came in. How many Local Government Areas were under the control of terrorists in the North-East?

“In the South-South, we all know what the situation was; now we have relative peace. With the resources at our disposal, we have done very well.

“People are very forgetful. Our main problem now is in the North West and North Central. People are killing one another in these places, what for? We’re going to be very tough,’’ he said.

Also, while receiving Karin Ahmad Khan, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday, Buhari said with adequate education, majority of Nigerians now knew that the Boko Haram insurgency had neither religious nor ethnic underpinning.

He said with concerted public enlightenment, it had become clear to the people that Boko Haram was a perversion of religion, rather than Islamic ideology.

“God is justice. You can’t kill innocent people, and shout; Allah Akbar (God is great). It’s either you don’t know that God at all, or you are simply being stupid.

“To say western education is unacceptable (Haram) is very fraudulent. That’s why we’re fighting them and educating the people. And we’re succeeding a lot.

“We came to office when things were very bad, but we are educating the people. Education is fundamental. Religion and ethnicity are out of it. Some people have just made it a lifestyle to cause confusion, destruction and death,” Buhari said.

Khan said extremism was like cancer, which spreads and can also recede, noting that what Boko Haram does in collaboration with Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP), “is perversion of religion.”

He said the ICC believed in complementarity, “which promotes collaboration, as against confrontation,” counseling Nigeria in concert with other Sahel/Lake Chad basin countries to get the United Nations Security Council to refer the atrocities committed by the terrorist groups operating in the region to ICC, for investigation and subsequently trial.