A group, the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, has expressed displeasure over the state of insecurity in some parts of the country.
To this end, the group asked President Bola Tinubu to be more proactive in the protection of the lives and property of Nigerians, saying Nigeria should not be left alone to become a banana republic.
This was contained in a communique jointly issued by Oba Oladipo Olaitan (Afenifere), Dr. Bitrus Pogu (Middle Belt Forum), Senator John Azuta-Mbata ( Ohanaeze Ndigbo) and Amb. Godknows Igali (PANDEF) and made available to our correspondent in Akure, Ondo State capital on Thursday.
According to the communiqué, the group said it was obvious that the Federal Government had failed Nigerians in the area of security, demanding a more serious approach to combat the menace and check the activities of criminal herdsmen who were allegedly killing people in Benue State.
The communiqué read, “The Federal Government of Nigeria and particularly the National Assembly must now accept their failure to provide the most fundamental security of life and property across the country whilst we witness the impunity of Fulani terrorists and their foreign collaborators wrecking genocidal attacks on indigenous communities across the nation and particularly in the Middle Belt region as happening currently in Benue State.
“For the umpteenth time, SMBLF calls on the President and the National Assembly to rise to their constitutional responsibility and duty to protect the life and property of Nigerians.”
To tackle the insecurity at the grassroots level, the group made some demands which included that, “The Nigerian federation should ensure enhanced autonomy of the federating states such that each state shall have its own independent police command with complimentary divisions at the local government and community levels, that all police officers from the rank of a Chief Superintendent and below should be deployed within their state of origin.”
The SMBLF also condemned the planned National Forest Guards as an additional federal security structure states, demanding that all security institutions or formations apart from the armed forces, police, civil defence and the State Security Services should be part of the security architecture of the states, “More so as lands and forests are exclusive constitutional prerogative of the federating states.”
The group, which condemned the alleged fire-brigade deployment of members of the armed forces to troubled areas spread across the country, said it is “Ineffective and puts unnecessary pressures on the military from its constitutional roles of defending the nation’s territorial integrity.
“Pending full-fledged restructuring towards true federalism, governments of the states of the federation should take immediate measures to provide security for their people in the nature of the Amotekun South West Security Network with the full complement of weapons to face and deter insurgency and terrorism.
“These security measures are considered more effective than the current unitary architecture in a federation, which renders governors as Chief Security Officers of their states only in name”, the communiqué stated.
The group urged the President and the National Assembly to treat the issues of insecurity with the utmost urgency so that Nigeria, as a sovereign state, shall be saved from the unenviable image of a banana and a prospective failed state.
These proposals should be the irreducible minimum as the alternative to calling out the people to take their destinies in their hands and procure instruments of self-defence from wherever possible if this carnage persists,” the group concluded
