The Director General of Buhari/Osinbajo Campaign Council in Ekiti State, Dr Olusegun Osinkolu, has appealed to Nigerians to stop the blame game and join hands with the All Progressives Congress-led federal government to get rid of banditry, terrorism and kidnapping ravaging the nation.
Osinkolu said the current experience of killings and kidnappings of citizens and expatriates in some parts of the nation shouldn’t make Nigerians lose hope in President Muhammadu Buhari.
Rather than blaming Buhari, Osinkolu argued that the president should be commended for rescuing the country from daily killings by Boko Haram insurgents that held the country by the jugular under Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
In a statement in Ado Ekiti on Saturday, Osinkolu said it was obvious that Buhari had succeeded in defeating the highly ferocious insurgency in the Northeast before bandits and kidnappings resurged in the Northwest and southwest regions.
“President Buhari inherited from Dr Goodluck Jonathan a highly vicious insurgency in the North where about 35,000 people were killed and 1.8 million displaced.
“The President took up the fight and he succeeded in decimating them and those displaced were already returning homes when suddenly these bandits and kidnappers reared their ugly heads in other regions.
“It was well known that Nigerians’ desire was that President Buhari should free the country from bombings and abductions by Boko Haram upon assumption of office in 2915.
“The Chibok girls kidnapped in their school was still fresh in our memory and that was where the president concentrated efforts on and they were achieving good and cheering results when other zones started experiencing insecurity.
“It is not easy to fight insurgency, and countries like USA and Britain which had had the challenge knew the extent of human and financial resources you have to deploy to win the war.
“Except we are being hypocritical, President Buhari had shown more commitment than his predecessor in ensuring that Nigeria is safe for all and sundry.”
Osinkolu also backed the agitations for more empowerment for the local hunters, with deep knowledge of the terrain to tackle the bandits and kidnappers .
“I agree with the position canvassed by the Chairman, Editorial Board of the Nation newspapers, Mr Sam Omatseye, that only civilian Joint Task Force can tackle kidnappers and bandits.
“With this and general belief that civilian JTF had been useful in Borno , Adamawa and Yobe that they had helped in curtailing Boko Haram insurgents, the state governors must do the needful by empowering the local hunters and co-opt them into internal security architecture for Nigeria to get out of this mess.”
Omatseye while delivering a lecture at the Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti had said the military without the locals can’t win the war against banditry.