Yemisi Izuora
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, says the alarming killings in the country has reduced and challenged the media to ensure a proper reportage of this development.
The Minister made the assertion in Gusau, Zamfara, on Monday at a
Special Town Hall Meeting on Security.
”Let me say straight away that the killings, resulting from
farmers-herders clashes, cattle rustling, trans-border crimes and
banditry, among others, have fallen drastically. Unfortunately, this
has not received the kind of media coverage that was given to the
killings. I appeal to the media to correct this,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed said the drastic fall in the killings resulted from
concerted and committed actions by the Federal Government to curtail
the farmers-herders clashes, cattle rustling and other acts of
banditry, and listed such actions as including the deployment of a
Joint Military Intervention Force (JMIF), comprising Regular and
Special Forces personnel from the Army, Air Force and Navy, and
working in collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force, Department of
State Security (DSS), and Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps
(NSCDC).
The measures also include the establishment of the Army’s 2 Battalion
Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Kanfanin Doka Village, Birnin-Gwari,
Kaduna State; the establishment of a new Area Command and two
additional Divisional Police Headquarters in the Birnin Gwari Local
Government Area of Kaduna State; and the establishment by Nigerian Air
Force of Quick Response Wings (QRW) in Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba
States,
Others are the deployment of Special Forces to these Quick Response
Wings; the inauguration, by the Nigeria Police Force, of a new Mobile
Squadron in Takum, Taraba State and Operation ‘Whirl Stroke’,
operating in Benue, Nasarawa, Taraba and Zamfara states, to tackle the
menace of armed herdsmen, cattle rustlers, communal militias,
kidnappers and other bandits.
”I have no doubt that the good people of Zamfara can testify to the
drastic reduction in the activities of cattle rustlers and other
bandits in the state since the Federal Government deployed a
1000-strong military force, comprising the army, air force, police and
the civil defence, to launch fierce attacks on the bandits terrorising
the villages and towns of Zamfara State,” the Minister said, assuring
that the situation will continue to improve until the violence has
stopped.
He said the killings have nothing to do with ethnicity or religion,
adding: ”Those who are bent on exploiting our national fault lines
have
distorted the narrative to give the killings ethnic and religious
coloration, and this has aggravated the killings. We must repudiate
them, even as the Federal Government continues to consolidate on the
successful efforts to end the killings.”
The Town Hall Meeting was also attended by the Minister of State for
Environment, Mallam Ibrahim Usman Jibril; the Minister of Water
Resources, Engineer Suleiman Adamu; the Minister of Defence,
Brig.-Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali (Rtd); Minister of State for Budget
and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed and the Minister of State for
Industry, Trade and Investment, Hajia Aisha Abubakar
A lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Ahmadu Bello
University, Dr. Abubakar Siddique Mohammed, made a special
presentation at the Town Hall Meeting on the various security
challenges facing the nation and the possible solutions.