Veteran journalist suggests solutions to insecurity

A veteran journalist, Akogun Tola Adeniyi, has suggested ways of achieving an end to the rampaging security challenges in the country.

Adeniyi, a former Chairman of Daily Times of Nigeria, said that since some people in government had already admitted that some foreign Fulanis were imported into the country for a reason in 2015, the government should dispossess the mercenaries of their weapons and drive them out of Nigeria.

Adeniyi aired his views while fielding questions from a panel of discussants on People’s Arena, a state-of-the-nation forum on Facebook.

“The militias rampaging the land were, by own admission, imported into the country by the government … and it was for a purpose. Now they have gone out of control and both the unitary government in Abuja, the affected state governments, and poor victims are forced to pay huge ransoms.

“The only way to get out of it is for those who brought them into the country to do a dirty job to get them out and dispossess of their lethal weapons.

“Government at the centre must be honest to itself … all these bandits are not ghosts … who are they? What’s their identity? Answers must be provided to these questions before we can get to the root of this crazy terrorism.

“Who is killing them in Zamfara? Who is killing them in Katsina? Who are the farmers in Kebbi? Who are the people killing the farmers and why?”

A discussant and former gubernatorial candidate in Ogun State, Hon. Olu Falana noted that “a lot of Nigerians appear petrified with all that is going on and seem unable to assert their rights under any conventional statutory norms, he, therefore, asked Adeniyi, 'What else can be done by Nigerians or the government to end insecurity?'"

To this, Adeniyi said, “As it relates to the protesters, it is fascism undisguised. The right to protest is boldly entrenched in the UN Charter of Human Rights to which Nigeria is a signatory."

Adeniyi added that “… all of us should admit that the Lugard’s unmitigated experiment of lumping over 300 Nationalities together without their consent has failed woefully and has brought in its wake horrendous sorrow, pain, agonies to everybody concerned. Nigeria as a country has broken down irretrievably waiting to break up.”