The International Emergency Management Society (TIEMS) Nigeria/West Africa Chapter has asked the Federal Government to direct its military to go all out in the fight against Boko Haram and other insurgent groups and restore peace and tranquillity to the country immediately.
Chairman of the chapter, retired Air Vice Marshall Muhammad Audu-Bida said this in Abuja on Tuesday while disclosing the outcome of a pancake meeting of the executive board of the society, which held on Monday.
Audu-Bida said the board members considered the worsening humanitarian situation in the North East Nigeria as well as adjoining states and neighbouring countries and concluded that it was time that all be set aside to wrest the area from rampaging insurgents and restore peace.
According to him, figures from local and international agencies like National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Human Rights Watch, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and Internally Displaced Monitoring Centre (IDMC) revealed that mounting intolerable number of Nigerians were both displaced or were refugees in neighbouring countries.
He noted that as at March this year, close to 4 million Nigerians were displaced while over 100,000 were recorded as sheltering in refugee camps in Niger, Chad and Cameroun.
Audu-Bida declared that this could not be allowed to continue because humanitarian aid agencies were unable to reach those displaced people for fear of being attacked or kidnapped by terrorists who had no respect for rules of engagement in their operations.
“As a former military general myself, I am aware that our military is capable to quelling this insurgency because they have the training, courage and equipment to accomplish the task of securing the country’s territory but they should be allowed by political authorities to carry out their duties unfettered by political, ethnic or religious coloration and or sentiments”.
He lamented that the insurgency had been allowed to fester for too long and things had got out of hand especially with the recent sacking of the Police mobile training institution in Gwoza, Borno State.
“With this, the insurgents will become more emboldened unless decisive action is taken immediately to wipe them out.
“For the good of millions of Nigerians, the military should take decisive action now to stop further displacement of Nigerians, destruction of farmlands, lives and property as well as occupying our territory, a situation which has become very embarrassing to Nigerians, government and the armed forces”, they added.
While sympathising with parents and relatives of the abducted Chibok secondary school girls and other abducted Nigerians, the TIEMS Chairman said “reportedly, parents of the girls have patriotically called on the Federal Government not to allow Boko Haram insurgents to use the girls as human shields to continue to wreck havoc on the country”.
He noted that fighting insurgency and restoring peace had never been a piece of cake in any clime and cited the instance of the United States of America which refused to yield to Islamic State terrorists, who demanded ransom in exchange for the American captured journalist but rather continued to rain heavy sorties on the insurgents in Northern Iraq.
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