By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

The security situation has worsened of late as Boko Haram insurgents and other terrorist groups, some of them new, attack communities and military formations in the North.

In this interview, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) says insurgents have staged a comeback in full force. Ndume laments the shortage of military personnel to man the communities and calls for a declaration of a state of emergency on security. Excerpts:

The North-east has become the epicentre of renewed insurgent attacks. What is the security situation in your senatorial district, Borno South?

The security situation, as you know, is not good at all. Everybody knows that the insurgents have staged a comeback.
We are losing ground. The insurgents are intensifying their attacks in the base states particularly Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. Last week, they killed people in Adamawa, along Adamawa North in Hong. I think three or four villages. In Borno, they attacked Marte, they attacked so many locations, especially military formations.

But the other good side of it, or the encouraging part of it, is that the governor of Borno State, particularly, is standing up to the occasion seriously. As I’m speaking to you now, he is not in Maiduguri. He went to resettle immediately the people that were displaced from Marte who ran to Dikwa nearby. He spent the night there. As of now, he’s not back from Ran.

There is the Kala/Balgie local government residents who are displaced too. Now, that’s kind of strengthening the people to develop more resilience. Even the people locally are now more resilient than before, trying to stand up to them, and we don’t want the 2014 scenario whereby more than 22 local governments were completely displaced. So, our people are doing their best to resist. In my place, even the day before yesterday, there was an attack. But our people stood up to them. And fortunately too, the army is more responsive than before. We are lucky to have a very gallant officer as the Brigade Commander in my local government.

He is standing up and carrying the people along. So, the people are resilient. Every time the insurgents attack any location in our place, the people go after them. And most of the time, again, they don’t wait. In those days, when they hear gunshots of Boko Haram coming to invade them, people start running helter-skelter. But this time around, when they hear gunshots, they gather themselves, they blow whistles, and then they go to confront the Boko Haram. And they (Boko Haram) are more cowardly than our people. So, in most cases, they (Boko Haram fighters) run away. And sometimes, they lose their lives. Like in Isghe, our people chased them and recovered GPMG machine gun. In Warabe day before yesterday, they went and tried to attack them and steal their cattle.

They killed all five of them. And the remaining ones ran away. In Isghe, when they ran away, they recovered about 13 bicycles that they used from them. So, people are now standing up. But we still have a problem of those that hold ground. That is to say, we don’t have enough soldiers that will stay on ground to confront these insurgents. This is unlike the Boko Haram fighters who go around, use motorcycles, three on one motorcycle, and attack a military formation. The situation is so bad, but the governor and the people are doing their best. The Nigerian army is also doing its best, particularly.

The air force also, which is a very important component, is more responsive than before. But we have to get enough armed forces and security agencies to hold ground for the people to have the confidence to stay in their ancestral homes. The situation is very bad. There is a need to pay more attention to training, equipping, arming, and motivating the armed forces that are on ground. Their morale is down. Some of them have been in a particular spot for four years or more.

They need to be rotated. Their numbers need to be increased. I’ll give you a comparative analysis. Egypt, that has just 100 million people, has close to 450,000 soldiers and 500,000 reserves. They have one million police, besides other paramilitaries. And these are people that have relative peace than us. And if you come to their platform, I can’t remember, but definitely they have over 100 helicopters. But in Nigeria, that is not the case. And we have problems in almost every state, except maybe four.

There is insecurity problem in the Southeast, the problem of IPoB. And we have problem of herders and farmers and bandits in the North-central. We have recently a problem of Mahmuda in the North-central also. We have problem of Lakurawa and bandits in the North-west. As I speak, even yesterday, there was an attack in a village in Dutsema, and they destroyed, and killed many people, and took many people with them. There is insecurity problem in Sokoto. There is insecurity problem in Zamfara. There is insecurity problem in Kebbi. Consequently I have been calling for the deployment of the military to those locations. And we don’t have the number.

We have only 230, 000 soldiers. That is not enough to protect our citizens. And even monetarily, when some Nigerians, especially you journalists, keep saying the military is given too much money, go and check the budget of the US for defense. Even Egypt, their budget is comparatively, I think, is about $20 billion. If you convert that to Naira, it’s about N20 trillion. But our budget for this year for the armed forces is just N1.23 trillion. We need to concentrate on securing the country first, because, basically, or even constitutionally, the main purpose of government is security and welfare of the citizens.

When you have a budget of N54 trillion, and you just give the military N1 trillion, you say the military has been given too much money and that they are not accounting for it. When your house is on fire, will you be counting or quantifying the water that you use in order to quench the fire? The first thing is to quench the fire first before you even know whether you have overspent or not. We have a real problem in terms of security.

For me, the president should declare a state of emergency on this security matter, so that we will concentrate and spend more. Even if we have to borrow, all this borrowing that they are doing, why don’t they borrow to make sure that the country is secure? Because it is only when the country is secured that even the infrastructures that you put in place can be used. If you build a road and it is not secure, people will not ply the road.

In your place now, following this resurgence, can you quantify the losses, human and capital?

No, I can’t do that, but I know that we have lost a lot of lives. I think in just three weeks, they have attacked several locations. Somebody has put out the statistics, I don’t know exactly, but everybody knows that it is not only in Borno, but other states too. As I told you, the issue of insecurity has escalated in recent times, partly because of the pressure on the insurgents and the bandits in the Greater Sahel. You know, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon are fighting them. And when they are under pressure, as it is, they relocate to Nigeria, which is more or less a soft spot for them.

Each senator was allocated N2 billion under constituency projects. How did you spend your own?

I do rural roads. Out of my N2 billion, N500 million is going for the construction of rural roads from Purka to Ngoshe in Goza local government. N1 billion is going for the construction of blocks of classroom in the nine local governments in Borno South. N500 million is going for the construction of houses for displaced persons in Biu and Goza local governments.