From Rahila Abdullahi, Kaduna
Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, has thrown its weight behind call by the 19 states governors in the region
under the auspices of Northern Governors’ Forum, NGF, in collaboration with Chairmen of Northern States Traditional Rulers Council for State Police to tackle insecurity in the North.
ACF Spokesman, Prof. Tukur Baba, in a chat with AljazirahNigeria on telephone last night, said “we are happy that the Northern Governors are addressing some of the existential problems of the North, insecurity in particular” and the dwindling economic fortunes especially in agriculture.
Baba, said that “we have long advocated that problems bedevilling the North cannot be solved by one state, it has to be solved by all states acting together using a coordinated approach, synergising and so on”.
He expressed satisfaction that the NGF included traditional rulers during its Kaduna meeting at the weekend to chat a way forward for the region by tackling insecurity as well as other mirage of problems facing the north.
In this being he said that “we are happy that this time they included all traditional rulers and you know the traditional institutions in Nigeria is still very strong and relevant”.
Therefore, he pointed out that including them is a step towards tackling the situation of insecurity.
“Because the traditional rulers know every inch of their lands through a hierarchy of officials from Ward Head to Village Head, District Head so on and so forth,” adding that “so generally we welcome the development and their coming together to work together to solve the problems bedevilling the Northerners”.
The spokesman explained that Northern Governors are elected politicians and mostly in same political party as the president, “we should be realistic by not expecting them to come hard on the federal government or the president even as they know that the situation is not getting any better.
For example, he said “we have almost written off Zamfara State, there are killings and killings everyday but nobody is talking about it, the state governor is doing his best but it is still not enough, I wouldn’t expect the governor’s to come out openly and tell the federal government that it is not doing enough but certainly the federal government is not doing enough”.
According to him, “the governors are constrained because constitutionally they have limit as to what they can do, I would say applauding the federal government is only a way of urging them to do more”.
The governors are simply using what we call diplomatic language to convince the federal government to do the needful, they all know that the situation is not getting any better but they have to be optimistic, like I said, during the meeting nobody mentioned Zamfara even the media men are not doing justice to that state in terms of reporting the killings taken place daily.
AljazirahNigeria recalls that northern leaders in a six-point communique issued at the weekend of a meeting in Kaduna, last weekend.
The NGF, among other thing acknowledged the role of non-partisan cooperation and collaboration, in addressing the numerous developmental challenges confronting the north, deliberated on the ways to improve on the security apparatus of the region and Nigeria at large.
After exhaustive deliberations on matters of regional interest, with emphasis on security, the Forum released the following communique:
“The Forum commends Mr. President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, for his sustained commitment to addressing the security challenges and infrastructure deficits in Northern Nigeria.
“The Forum resolved to liaise with the Nigerian Governors Forum to work out modalities on how to increase support to the Federal Security Agencies”.
According to the NGF, the meeting also decided to strengthen peculiar local initiatives in combating all forms of security challenges.
“The Forum also resolved to urgently set up inter-state platforms to coordinate surveillance on our joint borders.
“The Forum reiterated its support for the creation of State Police and called on the National Assembly to expedite action on the enactment of the legal framework for its take-off”, it stated.
Meanwhile, the Forum’s next meeting is scheduled to hold on Aug. 30.
AljazirahNigeria reports that the citizens are waiting for a solution to the lingering insecurity in the country. Bandits and kidnappers have taken over most communities and forests in the South . Recall that sometimes last year, the Federal Government made a very serious move to get all the Governors to support the creation of State Police where every police will be locals who knows the terrain. The government of president Tinubu and the National Assembly should be quick in instituting a State policing system.
