Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, says his President Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday, reassured governors of the 36 states of the Federation of his administration’s commitment to putting an ending to insecurity in Nigeria.
Adesina, who spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme, however, noted that at today’s meeting with President Buhari, Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, and his counterparts in the North-East did not talk about engaging mercenaries to combat Boko Haram terrorists in the region.
Following the killing of 43 rice farmers in Borno by Boko Haram insurgents in November, Governor Zulum had made six recommendations to the Federal Government to defeat the terrorists, including the engagement of the services of the governments of Chad, Cameroon and Niger Republic as well as the services of mercenaries to defeat Boko Haram terrorists.
Due to the increase in the rate of killings in the country, the Nigeria Governors Forum under the Chairmanship of the Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, held a meeting with Buhari on Tuesday at Aso Villa.
But Adesina said Zulum and the other governors in the North-East region, never made any recommendation to the President on the use of mercenaries.
He said, “It was quite a fruitful meeting. The governors of the 36 states were invited and near 100 per cent of them turned up. It was across parties.
“After the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, Governor Kayode Fayemi, spoke, then, he invited a governor each from the geopolitical zones and give an account of what was happening, security-wise in their zones.”
Adesina said each of the governors spoke on the security challenges confronting their regions — North-West (banditry), North-East (Boko Haram), South-West (kidnapping), North-Central (farmers-herders clash), amongst others.
“After that, Mr President responded and they reviewed the accounts together. Where promises were needed to be made, they were made and where explanations were needed to be made, they were equally made,” he stated.
But when asked whether the Borno State governor and his North-East counterparts requested that the president engage mercenaries to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency, Adesina said, “No, not specifically, that did not come up; no one governor from the North-East mentioned it in person; it was not something the meeting dwelt on.
“The promise the President made was that more equipment were being procured and that some had come and the need to train our forces on the need to use them.
“He also encouraged the governors to work in close contact with the traditional authorities and local communities because intelligence is a big part of the thing. He encouraged them to work together so that those who sabotage the military by giving information to the other side can be encouraged to give information to the military.”
President Buhari is expected to address the National Assembly on Thursday in on the security challenges facing the country.
“The National Assembly will determine the format of the forum,” Adesina said.