FG has become helpless in handling insecurity, says Bugaje

The increasing level of kidnapping and armed banditry in the country, especially in the North, has demonstrated the helplessness of the Federal Government to fight insurgency, former National Assembly lawmaker, Dr. Usman Bugaje, has said.

Therefore, officials of Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP) under the leadership of Bugaje have called for a summit of northern leaders to deliberate on how to address the insecurity bedevilling Nigeria.

In a statement issued and signed by the Project Convener, Bugaje, titled ‘Organising and Coordinating Community Response to the Rising Insecurity in the North’, he pointed out that the security challenges facing the country was both unprecedented and unbearable.

He said: “The alarming deterioration of the security situation in the country and the northern states in particular is today very glaring. The increasing helplessness of the national security institutions, especially their inability to respond timely and adequately is conspicuously manifesting. That the prognosis is becoming increasingly gloomy and scary is also fairly obvious.

“The scale of the loss of human lives and property, the trauma on the national psyche is both unprecedented and unbearable. Already miscreants have started taking laws into their hands, which is taking us on the path of anarchy. In the face of this national disaster, political leadership appears to have abdicated its responsibility to protect lives and property of citizens.”

Bugaje noted that in these circumstances, no responsible citizen would fold arms and continue to lament in the comfort and company of friends and relatives.

He added that the ARDP with the support, understanding and collaboration of pan-northern platforms has decided to call for a two-day conference on the security situation in the country, especially the North.

“This conference is designed to consider and organise coordinated community response to the protracted security impasse that has bedevilled all of us for some time now. This conference will bring together northern community leaders, youth and women leaders, academics and security experts to undertake in depth study of the situation and proffer community driven solutions to this seemingly endless menace. The conference is billed to take place in Kaduna from the June 18 to 19, 2019. Details of the conference will be released subsequently.”