Following the current crisis rocking the Northern part of the country, six Governors of the North-east states and heads of Security Agencies have met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, Abuja on Monday, with the state chief executives disclosing that the insurgents are able to recruit more followers because of lack of access to farmlands.
The Governors who were at the meeting also attended by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo include Zulum (Borno), Mai Bala Buni (Yobe), Ahmadu Fintiri (Adamawa), Bala Mohammed (Bauchi), Mohammed Yahaya (Gombe), and Darius Ishaku (Taraba).
While speaking with state house correspondents, the Governor of Borno State, Zulum, said that him and other Governors met the President with a view to highlight the key challenges in the region, especially issues of security, decaying infrastructure especially rock projects, cases of oil exploration in the region, issues of enhancing river basin development in the
region among infrastructure.
He also said why these insurgents recruit new members was due to the lack of access to farmlands, so they called upon the President to address the causes of insurgency in these area.
“One of the root causes is that of access to farmlands, people need to go back to their farmlands, people need to be resettled in their original homes so that they can restart their means of livelihood.”
“This is one of the reasons the insurgents are recruiting more into the sect and therefore creating enabling environment will enable the people to go about their normal duties will no doubt reduce the cases of insurgency.”
“We also recommended that Police should be empowered, to be provided with a certain state of the art equipment, armoured personnel carrier and so on with a view to bridging the manpower gap that we are having in the Nigerian military.”
