Security Expert and former National President of The Northern Patriotic, Terrence Kuanum, has said that the communities in the north that experience terrorist attacks are complicit because they do not trust the security agencies and government to come to their aid when needed.
In an interview with ARISE NEWS ON Monday, the security expert revealed that the attacks in the northern part of the country always resurface during election periods and the times when transition of power is being done.
He said, “In times past, we have expressed these challenges of fresh security challenges coming back to us after elections or after transition periods, because it seems as if in every 4 years, the efforts we have made are always put aside, and then we start having fresh challenges.”
Kuanum, who described these attacks as a “perennial” problem, said that the issue is worrisome development, and then they keep worrying what is happening to the intels that had been generated over time to curb these activities. He said, “If we access what is actually happening in the hinters of the northern part of the country, a lot of kidnappings are taking place. For instance, the Zamfara where we are talking about at the moment, we are still looking for corpers that were kidnapped within that road, and them, these girls that have just been kidnapped in Zamfara, this is not the first in the last one month, this should be about the third that that school has been attacked.”
He then said that the communities were complicit, being on the side of the terrorists most of the time, which made it harder to catch the culprits, saying, “We see everybody in those territories as being complicit with the challenges that we have. We’ve even had situations where even communities in those areas prefer to protect the terrorists and enemies that are attacking them than even give information to the security agencies. At a point, we had analysed why the citizens prefer to take sides with the terrorists than the conventional security services.
“It is possible it was because of the lack of confidence they have in the security outfits protecting them because most times when they refuse to protect the terrorists and they give information, the attacks they receive shortly after that are so dampening. Most times, the communities are wiped out and nobody comes to their rescue. And you know the challenges we have in rescuing our people, you know the challenges we have in our IDP camps when the government does not even attend to people in the IDP camps and XYZs, and most communities in the North sometimes even contribute monies to pay royalties to these terrorists for them to be able to exist in their ancestral homes.”
Kuanum also accused the government, both the federal and Zamfara state government, as being complicit as well, saying that though Zamfara is rich in mineral resources, the revenue from those resources have not been of benefit to the state because, according to him, “that place has been hijacked.
Regarding this, he further said, “We have in times past accused the people and government of Zamfara state and even the federal government at a point that they are complicit in the security challenges that we are having in Zamfara, because why is it that those security challenges can’t be ever addressed for us to be able to exploit our mineral resources for our benefits? And in the midst of these security challenges, they are extracting these minerals and they are taking them out of this country, and we are losing on a daily basis.”
Kuanum then charged the government to provide solutions to the growing insecurity in the north as he said, “These challenges abound in the North, we have analysed them in the times past, the security chiefs we have today have been on the field all along at the time these things are analysed, and I believe that they actually know the solutions to this. They should be able to put heads together with the president. The president should give the marching order for these people to go into the field and be able to stop this thing now that they are resuscitating. Because if they sustain the tempo they are coming back, I can tell you the security challenges we have in this country is going to make this situation worse because we are going to have a lot of volunteers that are going to be a part of these people that will make this situation worse.”
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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