Nigeria’s Minister of Defence, Adetokunbo Kayode has said the crisis in Jos was not as a result of any external force or influence, but a challenge bringing brothers together again and stop bloodshed.
He told journalists on Friday at the Presidential Wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos that the Federal Government was not overwhelmed by the crisis, as political, social, economic and religious solutions were being sought to the crisis.
“Government is not overwhelmed with the crisis in Jos, government is implementing a special operation in Jos and don’t forget that these are brother to brother conflict, that is people who are living together fighting each other. It is not as if people are coming to invade them from the moon or outside Nigeria,” he said.
“So it is very difficult to manage it, now the soldiers who are doing the task force are in the middle keeping them separate from fighting and where there is any attack, they make sure they arrest those involved and make them face the law.
“All this is done while government tries to look for political solution, social solution, religious solution even economic solution to some of the problems because it is not a simplistic issue of maybe this is a Muslim and the other is a Christian or if this one is a Hausa man or not.
“These people have lived together, why they started to attack themselves, dehumanise each other this way is surprising to everybody, but we are doing everything within our power and I am sure especially after the tension of election have cooled down, a lot of efforts will be put together to live together like they used to before.
“Government is not overwhelmed in ordinary circumstance; they are our people, so there is a limit to the amount of force we can use, other than that it will become counterproductive.”
On what the government was doing to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians trapped in Libya, the minister said it was already on top the matter to evacuate the people there.
“You will agree that government has a responsibility to care for the welfare and security of the people and it is because of this that, even before this matter in North Africa escalated to this level, government has set up a think tank and a study group to look at it,” he said.
“The ministry of foreign affairs is being fully given all the powers to act and we are all making all efforts to evacuate Nigerians where there is danger. For instance Egypt, the matter did not really affect a number of persons except for those who are protesting, but there is going to be some more serious situation in Libya and we making efforts to make sure that Nigerians there are brought back.”
On plans to draft some of the ex-militants into the Nigerian Army, the minister who affirmed that the ex- militants were also Nigerians and had the right to be part of the military even as he emphasised that government was making efforts to professionalize the Army.
“What I can say is that Federal Government is not treating militants as if they are from the moon. Militants are Nigerians and it is circumstance that have made them do whatever you have observed; most of them have already given up their arms, they are being reintegrated and given training both in Nigeria and abroad and all of them who are interested must be given a fair opportunity like every other Nigerian. But what I can assure you is that we are making all efforts to professionalize the arm force; so we are taking in people who are competent, legible, qualified and professional. That is why again we are going to be encouraging them to join the arm forces even at the combatant level,” the minister said
Feb262011