President Muhammadu Buhari has blamed the leaders of Borno communities over the incessant Book Haram attacks in the state.
Speaking during a visit to the state following the Auno village massacre of travellers, he added that there is no way the insurgents would come into the community without the community leaders knowing.
“I am delighted with what the governor of Borno State and the Shehu of Borno have said; especially both of them have recognised the efforts this administration in the area of security by comparing the situation in 2015 and now,” the president said.
“I am happy that the governor has advised the military to work hard to restore the situation in the state. But it cannot be done without good intelligence. And to my understanding, good intelligence by my experience, having been a soldier before, means cooperation with the local population.
“This Boko Haram or whoever they are, cannot come up to Maiduguri or its environs to attack without the local leadership knowing; because traditionally the local leadership is in charge of the security in their own respective areas. In my understanding of our culture, I wonder how Boko Haram survives up to this time.
“As commander in chief, I campaigned in both in 2015 and 2019 on three fundamental issues and one is security because you cannot properly preside over a country without security, even those who don’t go school know that.
“Secondly, it is the economy; we have vibrant and energetic youth in this country where 60 per cent are below the age of 30. We have to remind them that they must help us to stabilise this country so that they can have a better future. If they don’t cooperate with the government, they are endangering their future. I am already 77 years old and how many more years do I expect under normal circumstances.
We are working for you in this country.
“As the commander in chief, I will deal with the security situation. I believe there is an improvement in security. Economy-wise we worked hard in the area of agriculture and have seen the result in the agricultural sector; three results. One, which is fundamental, is food security. Officially, we don’t import rice because we want to defeat the smugglers; and we saved hundreds of millions of dollars. And this happened because the farmers went back to the land.”
