Senator Ndume: Nigeria Lacks Adequate Soldiers, Weapons To Fight Boko Haram
Ali Ndume, a Senator representing Borno South in the National Assembly has blamed inadequate security personnel and lack of enough weapons for the delay in ending insurgency and other security challenges in the country, particularly the North- East.
The senator, who is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Army, was reacting to the incessant attacks by Boko Haram in the country, especially the attack on Mainok Army Base on Monday.
Speaking to BBC Hausa on Tuesday, Ndume said it is not that the government is not making efforts to end Boko Haram, “but the efforts put in place to tackle the problem forced the terrorist to launch more attacks to show that they are still strong, and especially where they can get weapons. Just like what they did at Mainok.”
On whether there are people feeding the insurgents with information especially among the soldiers, Senator Ndume said it is possible that there are informants behind the terrorism among the security but only God knows.
“This is not a war between two countries, it’s happening within Nigeria. Therefore it is possible they get information from some people and that is why we are facing these problems.”
He advised that more security personnel should be employed and redeployed to the region for the fight against terrorism to succeed, adding that nowhere in the country is peaceful presently.
“My advice is that since there is no region in the country that is peaceful presently, and this is due to the security personnel are not enough and they don’t have enough weapons, some measures have to be taken.
“I have been saying this many times whenever a situation like this happens then there is a need to add more security personnel and more weapons also should be added.”
He added that some soldiers had spent over five years in one location and that they should be redeployed for some to rest and new ones to take over.
