The Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has said terrorists are now targeting the Southwestern part of the country to source for funds for their activities in the North.
Fayemi, who is also the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), made this assertion while speaking on Channels Tv’s Sunrise Daily programme on Monday.
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He said: “Insecurity comes in different guises, what is an insurgency in the Northwest may transform itself into banditry or kidnapping in the Southwest, utilising the resources it gets from that to continue to fund insurgency in other parts of the country.
“What is not in doubt is the inexplicable nexus that now exists between those responsible for the insurgency in the northeastern part of the country and those involved in banditry in the northwest that is now coming south in search of resources in order to fund their nefarious activities in the areas where they hitherto operated.
“It’s that chain that must be broken, that nexus. That is why we in the Southwest that have seen these activities metamorphosing into insecurity in our space must be concerned with what is going on in other parts.
“We must concern ourselves with insecurity in any part of Nigeria. That is what this has pointed to, we can not just play the ostrich.”
He said taking an isolated view in solving the problem of insecurity in Nigeria would be a waste of effort and demanded an integrated response.
The Ekiti State governor called for the retooling of the security architecture to achieve an integrated response to insecurity.
“These things are inexplicably linked and we must respond to them in an integrated version, retool our security architecture, recruit more men into our security agencies, increase the use of technology – satellite surveillance, drone coverage, telephone tracking, all of these things need to now be much more accelerated in order to address this problem that has now come upon us,” he stated.
Fayemi said measures were already being made to track, apprehend and bring to book those who attacked the Catholic Church in Owo earlier in the month.
He urged Nigerians to remain vigilant and give information to the security agencies whenever they noticed anything odd in their locality.
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