Notable northern leaders gathered in Zaria, in Kaduna State, on Thursday where they made assessment of the security threats and violence crimes in northern Nigeria. They expressed discontentment that the federal government has not responded properly to stop the carnage, the perennial killings and destruction of property in northern Nigeria by the merchants of violence from the north east to the North West and the north central. .
The northern elders condemned the unjustified silence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) government in the face of rising threats to the north, in particular, and some parts of Nigeria, by bandits, herdsmen, kidnappers, armed robbers and other gangs causing mayhem without the requisite response from the security agencies.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, signed by the Convener of the NEF, Prof Ango Abdullahi, the elders questioned the undue priority given by the government to politics over human lives, blaming it on what it calls “weak political will and monumental political corruption”.
The communiqué read in part: “Today, the north still lives under horrendous Boko Haram threats, a situation, which has been aggravated by threats of banditry, kidnappings, armed robbery, marauding youth gangs, herders and farmers mini-wars and seemingly overwhelmed or indifferent governments.
“Agriculture, our pride and national economic comparative advantage, the greatest employer of labour and leading contributor to GDP is in ruins as animal husbandry and crop and roots farming are in the throes of war and damage.
“Our rural folks live in perpetual fear of attacks from sundry terrorist assassins without any reprieve. Our major highways and transportation systems are being abandoned as they have become death traps.
“Should the Nigerian people continue to run and hide from criminals under an administration that has enjoyed and received support especially from Northern Nigerians that it cannot address their existential and developmental challenges?”