The Middle Belt Forum has blamed the lingering security challenges bedeviling Nigeria on the complicity of the present administration in the country.
The forum equally said when the present administration came into power in 2015, the security situation in the country had not deteriorated to the level it has gone now.
President of the Forum, Bitrus Porgu disclosed this in an interview with journalists in Jos, the Plateau State capital.
Porgu said, “The insecurity in the country is so pathetic, especially in the middle belt.
According to him, “When this present administration came in, things were not this bad, sadly it has continued to offer propagandist statements about security issues.
“But they know the truth and the people out there know the truth, that the insecurity situation in the country is worsening by the day.
“Insurgents, bandits or whatever name they call them are now funding their operations using kidnappings and we are the victims.
“They kidnap our people, we pay ransom, and they use that ransom to sustain themselves to continue with their dastardly act”, he decried.
“It is high time the government looked into these things more seriously, with a view to addressing it squarely.
“We can say the government is complicit; a government that sees insecurity, even after negotiating with bandits, knows their location and you wouldn’t go and apprehend them; we can call that government complicit.
“People in Borno including the security agents know the location of Boko Haram”, he maintained.
“And going by what Sheikh Gumi has done, it means the government also knows the location of these people.
The Middlebelt Forum President added that, “It doesn’t take space technology to deal with such; we have an Air Force, we don’t even have to waste the lives of soldiers on miscreants out there; just go and bomb the hell out of them because you know their location.
Porgu, however, said, “Since the government is not doing it, it means what President Buhari said during the Goodluck Jonathan administration, that he was killing his people (Buhari’s people), when Boko Haram were dealt with.
“So maybe he is saying he doesn’t want to kill his people, that is why he is leaving the bandits; so what is currently happening justifies what I’m saying”, he stressed.
Speaking on the way out of the security situation in the country, Porgu said, “The way forward first, is, we would continue to push the government to do what is right, if the government fails; what has happened in other areas would happen in the middlebelt.
“The South-West started Amotekun, to defend their people, the South-East also started its own security network, all because they have seen the total failure of government in protecting the lives of its citizenry, we too will do same,” he assured.
