The Nigeria opposition has asked the country’s security chiefs to resign or be fired, after Friday night’s terror attacks by Islamic insurgents Boko Haram that left dozens dead and injured in the northern state of Yobe.
‘It is now apparent that those saddled with ensuring the security of lives and property in the country are grossly incapable of doing so, hence the need to shake up the security agencies and put more capable men and women in charge,’ the party said in a statement issued here Sunday. ‘The shake-up must not spare any of the security chiefs. This is about taking responsibility. After all, they have consistently assured the nation they are capable of stopping these deadly attacks, which have now grown in number and ferocity,’ it said. The party also criticised the President’s reaction to the attacks, slamming ‘the President’s spin doctors’ for saying he cancelled his trip to his home state of Bayelsa for a family wedding in view of the attacks.
‘The President’s spin doctors are so unimaginative. Why do they think Nigerians are more interested in whether or not he cancelled his social trip than in what the President is doing to stop this carnage? ‘In other climes, the President would have gone ahead to address his compatriots to reassure them that the government is still capable of protecting them, instead of merely telling them his cannot make a social trip,’ it said. ACN again warned the government not to think it can use force to defeat those behind these heinous acts, adding that a more imaginative solution must be fashioned out to save the lives of innocent Nigerians and the security agents who are daily being mowed down by Boko Haram.
It reiterated its call for a stakeholders’ conference ‘to help find a way out of the quagmire the country has been thrown into.’ The attacks, which have been claimed by Boko Haram, saw suicide bombers and gunmen attacking police posts, a bank, shops and estates in the state capital, Damaturu, and the city of Potiskum. The attacks precipitated a gun battle between the police and the attackers that lasted far into the night. It was the latest in a series of attacks by Boko Haram, which also claimed responsibility for August’s bombing of the UN House in the capital city of Abuja, in which 24 people, including 12 of the organisation’s staffers, died.