Northern elders, under the auspices of Northern Elders for Peace and Development, on Monday, lamented the rising spate of killings in the region, saying urgent and drastic measures need to be taken in order to halt the mindless killings and destruction.
The NEPD noted that killings of security personnel and civilians since the beginning of the year was alarming and the elders decried what they term “under reportage of the situation by the media.”
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National Coordinator of the group, Engr. Zana Goni, in a statement, backed President Buhari’s position that the government would not negotiate with the bandits or pay ransom while warning against further amnesty for the terrorists.
Goni said they wondered why those entrusted with maintaining security in the North are not giving Buhari the true state of the security situation in the region, adding that “such act has further aggravated the situation in the entire region”.
“We write to decry the rising state of insecurity in the North East in particular and Northern Nigeria at large and the deliberate attempts by some very highly placed government officials to use some unpatriotic online media to downplay the true situation on the ground. This is unpatriotic and unacceptable to us.
“We wish to draw the attention of these unpatriotic elements to the fact that engaging in this unwholesome act and at the same time expecting different results is impossible,” the statement read.
The elders stressed that ransom and negotiation were two major ingredients fueling abductions and other nefarious activities of bandits and terrorists in the country.
The group vowed never to be silent in the face of the worsening insecurity in their region, noting that “farmers were not going to their farms again beside the inability of residents to sleep with their eyes closed like in the past”.
They tasked security Chiefs to sit up and take necessary steps to end the security challenges and not “merely paying lip service”.
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