By our reporter| Under siege governor of Bornu state, Babagana Zulum on Wednesday asked President Muhammadu Buhari to invite Chadian soldiers to fight alongside the Nigeria Army if the country wants to make progress in the fight against Boko Haram insurgents.
Governor Zulum who made the call when a delegation of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), led by its Chairman Dr John Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state visited him in Maiduguri over the recent attacks on his convoy, said no single army anywhere in the world has ever succeeded in quelling insurgency.
In a statement on Wednesday by NGF spokesman, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, Zulum noted that the request was not to undermine the Nigerian soldiers but to help them in finishing the job within a realistic deadline.
He, therefore, requested that the government looked into ways of complementing the efforts of the Nigeria Army with the Chadian soldiers.
According to the statement, Zulum, who spoke in a somber mood, explained that he would not be deterred from pursuing his goals of emancipating his people because, according to him, “security and development are two sides of the same coin”, arguing that Borno “people had been forced to be unproductive and depend on aid.”
He also promised to be careful in the way he traversed his state, noting that did not mean that he would be forced to chicken out of pursuing his goals of returning his people to their ancestral homes.
Earlier, the chairman of the governors forum urged governor Zulum to exercise caution in his activities in the state not minding the frequent response that his life was in the hands of Allah and that death will only come when Allah wills.
Fayemi who stressed that Nigeria owes the Borno people a duty to end the insurgency, recounted how governor Zulum tried to discourage them from visiting his state but the Chairman of the NGF insisted that it is not just a duty but the most realistic thing to do because “an attack against one is an attack against all”.
The NGF’s delegation, which included Governor of Sokoto State and Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF), Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, and the Governor of Plateau State and Chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum, Simon Bako Lalong, assisted the government and people of Borno State with N100million.
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