Governors under the aegis of Northern Governors Forum have lambasted the Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, over his recent comments on the insurgency in the North Eastern part of the country, describing the statement credited to Maku after the Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday as unfortunate.
Chairman of the forum and Governor of Niger State, Dr Babangida Aliyu, reacting to the statement at the opening of a one-day meeting of Federal and State Government’s Security Administrators in Minna, said if the views expressed by the minister was the opinion of the Federal Government “it is very uncharitable, it is more than unfortunate.”
Maku had been quoted in the media, yesterday, as saying that governors in the northern part of the country were not doing enough to contain insurgency in the region.
According to Governor Aliyu, “I was very sad when I read today (Thursday) in virtually all the papers where the Minister of Information was accusing us (northern governors) of not doing enough to fight insurgency in the region.
“If it is his views, then it is very unfortunate. If it is the views of the Federal Government that is very, very uncharitable. It is more than unfortunate and I think it is part of hypocrisy because no governor as far as I know and as Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, no Governor will be accused of not doing enough.
Not doing enough
“But given the circumstances that we have found ourselves, how can we do enough when we are aware that people like Labaran Maku would be playing politics of their states with a serious matter. I think the statement came out because of what is happening in Nasarawa State and now he generalises it to the northern states.
“How can we do enough when some people believe that what is happening is a deliberate plan to stop some people and, therefore, the action that should have been taken from the start was delayed.
“Why should anybody accuse us of not doing enough with even the children that were kidnapped and some people are trying to make it look as if nothing happened.
“I am not aware of any governor that has either been invited by the National Security Adviser or the Director of DSS to be told what to do and he did not do it. I am not aware of that.
“We as Northern governors set up a committee that went round all the states, we sent our report and recommendations to the Federal Government and what did the Federal Government do? They set up another committee which went round and plagiarized the report of the Northern governors.
“So, for any minister to wake up and start castigating people that will not solve the problem. I thought with what has happened that we need to stop this blame game and start to find solution to what is happening.
“If we are serious, if there is political will, with the assistance of the international committee, we should be able to finish this thing in three months. We still insist, all the agreements entered into should be finished withing three months.”
Ranching field
In an address to the event, Permanent Secretary, Special Services Office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation, Alhaji Ibrahim Mahe, advised that ranching field should be set up by states and local governments to serve as models to emulate by herdsmen and private individuals who may want to practise ranching.
Represented by a director in the ministry, Malam Abdullahi Shehu, the Permanent Secretary said states should also set up peace and security committees with membership drawn from relevant stakeholders to mediate and resolve conflicts between herdsmen and farmers.
Source vanguard
