By Ogenyi Ogenyi, Uyo
National Security Adviser Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has said the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has recorded milestones in tackling security issues in the country but chosen to talk less.
He has also said that the present administration inherited four very challenging securities issues, each with great potential to cripple the country.
Ribadu stated this on Thursday at the ongoing 2023 Nigeria Guild of Editors conference in Uyo with the theme: “Stimulating Economic Growth, Technology: Role of the Media.”
According to him,”we have been in office for five months and few days.I thought we are going to have a closed door meeting with you people because the issue of National Security will not be too good to discuss in the public, but this government wants also to be transparent and to account for its actions before Nigerians.
“We will open up and to be honest and sincere. I will tell you a little bit of what we met and what we have done in the last five months.
By 1st June after we took over the country, we inherited four active security challenges and each one of them has potentials to undermine Nigeria and the continuous management of the country.
“We have the Boko Haram and Islamic insurgency for about 15 years now, we have the Niger Delta militants for over 30 years. we have the Banditry and Kidnapping in the areas of Northern Nigeria, North West and North Central and the IPOB problem in the south east, four massive problems, each one with potentials to get Nigeria to its knees, all of them very active.
“As at the time we took over, records show that we record an average of 1600 violent death on the average daily through those who undermine the state to make life very difficult for our people.
“We went to work, as at the time we took over, in the Niger Delta, the production of crude oil was at 1.1 million or 1.2 million at most, we have less than 20 cargoes a month. We worked and took crude oil production to over 1.7 million barrels and export of crude with 26/27 cargoes.
“At a point we have had a complete three weeks of no violence in the Niger Delta, the first of its kind since 1993 but we don’t talk.
“In the south east, by the time we took over, we discovered that last year alone,. we have 46 police station attacked and today we don’t have one single one. Then We have people who are not indigenes of that part of Nigeria attacked but in the last 2 months, there was no such incident, we don’t talk.
He said the complexities in managing security issues remained enormous while such issues would always be difficult to contain if they have been on ground for long.
“The tragedy of handling security is that when this crime has happened for a long time it is difficult to reverse it. If you allow insecurity to stay too long it will compromise ability and capability to handle it, it affects the security forces markets, hospitals, people’s way of life.
“It is a big tragedy to allow some parts of his country to continuously be under the control of insecurity for these numbers of years.” He explained.
Ribadu lamented that many especially in the North have had their lives and livelihood truncated as some communities in the northern parts of the country stay for more than 10 years without going to the farm or market to buy and sell and they are mostly peasant farmers and very poor people.
“Their children also never go to school again all these years. In the last one month, we have witnessed a complete two months without insecurity in many parts of the North. The same thing with the banditry when we came in, until like few days we have had about 600 people initially kidnapped freed from bandits. We did not talk.
“This is just one half way of restoring order and security in our country. Kidnapping today has replaced armed robbery and house breaking in Nigeria because people don’t carry money about anymore.
“When armed robbers catch people without money on them, they take them hostage and your people now provide the money as ransom. That is what is going on across the country and we are working hard to control and stop it. I want to tell you that the organized kind of kidnapping is coming down considerably.
“As at today, we have about just 26 of such people now in their den, 13 from university in Gusau, 5 NYSC members and few others, the era they move in and pack students in hundreds is no longer tenable under this administration.” He said.
