A former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has described the present security challenges in Nigeria as “terror attacks.”
Jonathan said this when he paid a condolence visit to an Afenifere leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, whose daughter was killed by suspected herdsmen.
Nigerians have been contending with cases of bandits attack, kidnapping and herdsmen/farmer crisis in recent time.
And the former president is advising the Federal Government to design a different approach in tackling it.
Jonathan said: “I came here to condole our father (Pa Reuben Fasoranti) on the death of his daughter. It is a painful death to all of us.
“We know we will all die and it does not respect age, but the circumstances of death matters so much. In this particular case, it is quite a painful incident.
“Every generation of human beings faces problems and that generation must find ways of solving that problem. Every government faces some unique problems.
“Insecurity has been with us immediately after the civil war. That was the first time we experienced armed robbery in Lagos. From armed robbery, it graduated to kidnapping.
“The first major kidnapping I described as commercial kidnapping because some money exchanged hands which happened in 2006 when I was also a governor of Bayelsa State. From commercial kidnapping, it moved to terrorism in the north and now some kind of terrorist attacks all over the country, when people will just come out of the bush and spray bullets on innocent people. That is terror attack.
“While noting that there was no reason for anyone to attack somebody not known, he said:
“It is now a major problem to the country and my belief is that the federal government, working with the state governments, must design a different approach.
“I was there as a president for some time, security challenges were there with me, I also inherited some. But it is getting worse everyday. And we cannot continue to use the same old method.
“As security operatives, the police, the SSS, the armed forces, we must deploy technology and I believe if the federal government will need to set up a special unit, just like we set up EFCC and ICPC to handle specific issues of corruption, they will know that their total responsibility is to manage this issue of kidnapping and terrorist attacks on people going on the road or going to the farm.
“We can’t continue that way, it is not just possible, because we can’t talk about managing the economy of this country if people are not safe. Economy is for the people, they must be alive to enjoy infrastructure. Even if you tar all the roads in the country and people cannot move around, then the road become meaningless.
“The issue of security must be approached from a different dimension, we cannot continue the old way because it is getting out of hand. We hope the federal and state governments will do something about it.”
