The Sultan of Sokoto and Co-Chairman of the National Council of Traditional Rulers, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, has described killings in the country as unfortunately a new normal.
According to him, in view of the spate of killings, it had become a story when no one was killed in any part of the country in a day.
The sultan made the remark on Monday when he led other traditional rulers to pay a condolence visit to the governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Zulum, over the recent killing of some farmers by terrorists in the state.
He however said that it was time for all Nigerians to come together and fight the wanton waste of lives.
He also suggested that the military should occupy Sambisa Forest and the Lake Chad region, from where the terrorists have been launching their attacks.
His words: “So many lives have been lost in the past.
“We can’t even compute how many lives we have lost.
“It becomes like a daily occurrence, a daily event. A new normal.
“It becomes a story when in a day nobody was killed in a particular place of this country.
“We had various fora with our political leaders, mentioned these things out, how to take care of our security in various communities.
“We have written papers, sent our governors, we have discussed with all our leaders all the way forward.
“But we see things getting worse and worse.
“It used to be Boko Haram alone in Borno and Yobe.
“Now, it is all over the North in particular and generally all over the country.
“You have bandits and terrorists all over the North.
“You can’t even move freely.
“In the South, it is the same thing.
“The killings have taken new dimensions and we really don’t know what are the causes of these mass killings of innocent people.
“We decided to come together as the Council of Traditional Rulers to make this statement to all and sundry, not only to the Governor of Borno State, but to all our governors.
“Let’s rise up to the occasion and see how we can come together to fight this menace of shedding innocent people’s blood.”
