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Health News of Sunday, 4 July 2021

Source: channelstv.com

Boko Haram attacks will reduce in 2014 – Ejiofor

Mike Ejiofor, Former Director of State Security Services Mike Ejiofor, Former Director of State Security Services

A former Director of State Security Services, Mike Ejiofor, has predicted a decrease in the activities of the Boko Haram sect in 2014 as political activities increases and the nation gears up for state elections in Osun and Ekiti States as well as the forthcoming 2015 general elections.

Speaking on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, Ejiofor said: “I’ll tell you outright from forecasts, the activities of Boko Haram are going to go down with the rise of political activities,” he said, insisting that the sect is politically motivated.

The appointment of new Service Chiefs, including the Chief of Defence Staff is also no guarantee that “the activities of Boko Haram will go underground,” he said, faulting the new CDS’ promise to bring an end to the insurgency in before the 2015 elections.

“I believe he should have settled down to study the situation,” he said.

Commenting on the state of the nation’s security, Ejiofor stressed that progress was being made. “In 2013 for instance, we made a lot of progress in terms of security. You can see that the issue of Boko Haram is now restricted to Borno in particular, with occasional splashes in Yobe and some parts of the North East.”

The current situation, he said, “is unlike what we had in 2011 – 2012 when it was bombing everywhere. You had in Kaduna and Kano. It was all over, even in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.

“I think we made substantial progress in 2013,” he said but stressed that there were “spill overs from 2013 to 2014.”

According to him, the greatest challenge Nigeria will face in 2014 is on the political front because of preparations for general elections. “I would concentrate more on the political threats.”

“The outcome of the governorship election coming up in Osun and Ekiti states is very critical to the general elections coming up in 2015.

“We should worry as a matter of fact” he said, referring to developments in the polity part of which he said was the mass defections from the PDP to the APC.

According to him, “PDP to Nigerians is just like what the Catholic Church is to the Christendom” and it is healthy for the nations democracy when politicians move in and out of political parties.

On the forthcoming elections, he said: “We should expect some level of violence this year in terms of political activities”.

“INEC should put all they have together and make sure that Osun and Ekiti elections come out clean. At least they should be able to score at least 80 to 90 per cent because we would be deceiving ourselves if we say we expect 100 per cent.”

On INEC’s decision not to conduct elections in the three states currently under emergency rule if security threats persist, Mr Ejifor mentioned the possibility of elections in the state based on the success of local government elections in Yobe state.

He also drew attention to comments made by certain individuals concerning the forthcoming general elections. “My worry is the utterances being made by some elders that would tend to compound our already existing problems.”

“Politically, if we don’t moderate our utterances, it’s going to create a lot of problems.”

He berated elder statesmen who have been making comments that would generate conflict in the polity.

On the arrest of Mr Nasir El-Rufai by the DSS for making inciting comments, Mr Ejiofor said there were bound to be reactions from the people because other individuals had made similar comments and were not seen to be called to order.

He said: “Government should be commended for the tolerance of opposition” as previous administrations had been hostile towards critics.

He further blamed some print media for its way of reporting news which “generates a lot of friction when there is none.”

“Some of our print media are part of the problems we are facing in our security challenges,” he said, citing ambiguous headlines as examples.

He called on the media to “play down on some of the security threats.”