The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has challenged the federal government to take prompt action against the alleged sponsors of terrorism rather than just periodically announcing the efforts it is making in combating the menace of terrorism.
The group threw the challenge in a release issued on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, while reacting to a statement by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, that the federal government had identified 96 sponsors of terror groups in Nigeria.
According to the organisation, various officials of the federal government had at different times, talked about the government’s efforts at curtailing the menace of terrorism gradually enveloping the country.
Ajayi said: “But other than occasional reports of bombardments of terrorists’ camps by the military, no concrete steps are seen to be taken by the government to tackle the roots of the problem. Indeed, the failure of the government to act decisively in this respect has emboldened the terrorists to be more daring, leading to the death of thousands of people and capturing of many communities particularly in the northern part of the country by the terror groups.”
He stated further that the disclosure by Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State, that the Islamic West African Province, ISWAP, group was about taking over Nigeria not only attested to the above claim, should be a serious reason for concern warranting decisive actions on the part of the government and its agencies.
Afenifere spokesman added that disclosures by the government no longer impressed majority of Nigerians as many of the claims and promises made in the past were not followed up with necessary actions.
Ajayi recalled that the United Arab Emirate announced last year that six Nigerians were among the 39 terrorists on its wanted list and were actually tried and convicted in that country for setting up a Boko Haram cell to raise funds and material assistance for insurgents in Nigeria.
He added that the six Nigerians were said to have transferred up to $800,000 in favour of Boko Haram between 2015 and 2016, stating that Nigeria was supposed to follow up on that but had not shown that foreign countries appeared to be more concerned about insecurity and terrorism acts going on in Nigeria even more than the Nigerian government seemed to be.
On the N700 billion recovered through the whistleblowing policy of the government as disclosed by Mohammed, Afenifere said it was disturbed that government was still borrowing heavily from abroad when it could harness recovered looted funds along with funds obtained from local sources.
It then called on the government to stop external borrowing, but provide jobs for the youths, boost the morale of security agencies and allow state and local government police.
