Yusuf Bello/ The north-west region is worried over the possibility of Boko Haram insurgents relocating from the north-east, Kaduna state governor, Nasir-el rufai said on Thursday.
The governor of the troubled north west state who stated this during the inaugural edition of the ‘Fountain Summit’, an event organised by the Ekiti government, said all Nigerians should be concerned about security issues, irrespective of which region is more affected by insecurity.
According to him, although Kaduna is facing security challenges, investors are aware that their assets are safe.
“We have security challenges, but our investors know where their assets are and they know that those assets are safe and we’ve never seen the headlines of security affecting our inflow of investments,” he said.
“But we must work on improving security or more than that, we must stop this ‘us versus them’ mentality and collaborate more closely.
“Remember once upon a time, Boko Haram was only in north-east. Now, the biggest fear we have in the north-west is that they are relocating to the north-west because they are being chased out from the north-east by ISWAP.
“When they are chased out of the north-west, where do you think they will come? Somewhere else. It is something we should all be concerned about; not only federal and state collaboration, but also across the country.
“Don’t see what is happening in Kaduna and say it is not my problem. It will be your problem one day, unless it is solved”.
According to the governor, there is a major difference between what is reported and how it reflects the realities in the entire state.
“There is a major difference between security in headlines and security in facts. Kaduna state has 46,000 square kilometres of land,” he said.
“I joke with my south-east governor friends that the whole of five states of the south-east can fit into Kaduna state, two and the half times.
“This is the size of the state. We are smaller than Niger state; we are smaller than Borno state. To cover that kind of area with 11,000 policemen is almost impossible.
“So there are many ungovernable spaces in our state. But you see, when an incident occurs in one part of the state, remotely connected with what is happening in Kaduna or Zaria or in the metropolitan centres, people think the entire Kaduna state is unsafe.
“It is not true. Kaduna is not Lagos. One local government area in Kaduna — Birnin Gwari local government area — is three times the size of Lagos state. So, when something happens in Ikeja, it doesn’t mean that Epe is affected. It is the same thing, but even larger in Kaduna state.”
Al-Barnawi, ISWAP leader, dead
Meanwhile, Lucky Irabor, chief of defence staff, says Abu Musad Al-Barnawi, a leader of the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), is dead.
Irabor confirmed the development on Thursday, while fielding questions from journalists at the state house.
“I can authoritatively confirm to you that Al-Barnawi is dead. He is dead, and he remains dead,” he said.
The development comes months after Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram leader, was reported to have been killed by ISWAP fighters in a gun battle.
Both factions have been at war since 2016 when ISWAP broke out of the Shekau-led group over leadership issues.
The crisis between the factions had broken out in Sunawa, a town on the Nigeria-Niger border, where many of the fighters killed each other.
When asked when military operations would end in the north-east, Irabor said the army is still assessing the situation, and cannot say when the operations would be concluded.
“For the state of peace, as long as we monitor the state of peace, of course, there are benchmarks and it’s not for me at this forum to give you a terminal date,” he said.
“You do also know as we move in the upward trend in the state of peace, then of course, that should give you an indication that at some point, we are going to have a review of the setting and whether there is going to be a scaling down of military actions.
“But under the current setting, we have not made such a plan, and we have not assessed that time has come for us to undertake that kind of assessment.”
Leave a Reply