The Governor of Niger State, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, has cautioned Nigerians especially “those fanning the ambers of war” to stop playing politics with national security.
He said, ‘‘Nigeria has lost many lives to needless and avoidable clashes.’’
Bello spoke Thursday while declaring open a one-day sensitization workshop for the north-central states which held at Vagoash Hotel, Minna.
He said that Nigeria would lose “if we continue to create state of insecurity through our actions and inactions.”
At the workshop, which centred on the implications of transhumance on sub-regional and national security and development, organized by the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the governor said that it was timely but lamented that in the fast changing complex globalised world, national security “is far too important to be toyed with.”
Bello noted the increasing number of innocent lives that are lost almost daily in parts of the country from violent clashes between farmers and pastoralists and from terrorists, some of whom he said might not be Nigerians.
According to him, “We must face the reality and stop playing politics with national security as hundreds of lives of our citizens are lost daily in different parts of the country from violent clashes between farmers and pastoralists”.
Bello also frowned at the increasing wave of lawlessness and deliberate violation of rule of law and undermining of constituted authorities and non-reverence for sanctity of human life and therefore appealed to Nigerians particularly those in leadership to educate their wards on the need not to take laws into their hands.
“We seem to have forgotten who we are and that is why we have no respect for the sanctity of life and for one another. We no longer respect the rule of law. People now take laws into their hands and take lives of others for a thing as simple as heap of yam. It is very unfortunate”.
The governor said that he could not understand why Nigerians no longer fear the police and other law enforcers if those who go against the law could walk freely on the streets without being arrested or even prosecuted by the law enforcement agencies.
“Something is fundamentally wrong with us as a people. In the good old days, people don’t associate or relate with anyone that commits murder, but now people carelessly and deliberately kill and go away with it without any fear of being prosecuted by the laws of the land.
“Nigerians no longer report cases of murder, it appears most people have lost confidence in the police. We are all Nigerians. We are all human beings and no one has the right to take the life of another but what we see today killing another with the slightest provocations”.
Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Hajiya Hadjiya Khadija Bukar Ibrahim, had attributed the increase in volume of transhumance between the north and southern parts of Nigeria to desert encroachment occasioned by climate change which has claimed about 350,000 sq km of land.
The development, Hajiya Bukar, argued further heightened the incessant clashes among farmers and pastoralists with the situation being exploited by criminal networks within the region to commit heinous crimes with sophisticated weapons.
The implications of transhumance, she said, had been of concern to Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS and are committed towards taking appropriate measures to check security challenges arising from it in the sub-region.