President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari says the Boko Haram will be denied a recruitment base the moment our local communities realize that its claim to being a religious group is nothing but a fraud.
“The fraud called Boko Haram can be defeated by denying it a recruitment base,” General Buhari told visiting leaders of Nassarawa State who came to congratulate him on his emergence as President-elect.
“No religion allows for the killing of children in school dormitory, in markets and places of worship. They have nothing to do with religion. They are terrorists and we are going to deal with them as they deal with terrorists anywhere,” he announced.
Buhari said he is greatly pained by the destruction of schools in the North-eastern part of the country, an action he said could deny thousands of youngsters access to education and a better future unless something was done urgently to avert this tragedy.
“The worst thing anybody can do is to deny children access to education. That will be destructive to their lives and we are not going to allow that to happen,” the President-elect assured.
He announce that his government will help the states to get more money to improve infrastructure by ensuring that all federally collectible revenues are paid directly into the federation account and each tier of government given its due share.
“As at now, the government does not even know how many revenue accounts it has. We will give all the tiers what is due to them but will hold them to be accountable as we would the federal government.”
Buhari while describing Nassarawa state as his own “political laboratory”, meaning the only CPC-controlled state of the 36 others adjudged the experiment as having been a success.
“From one state, I now have 22 political laboratories.”
He commended Governor Al-Makura for surviving his many impeachment plots, saying “without Nassarawa, there would not have been an APC.”
Dozens Killed by Suspected Boko Haram Members
More than 20 people have been shot dead by gunnmen believed to be members of Boko Haram in Yobe State.
According to eyewitnesses, the victims were some of the internally displaced people who were trying to return to their homes on Monday to recover some food supplies, believing the area is now temporarily secure.
“The men were stopped at Bultaram (village) by gunmen we believe are Boko Haram who shot them dead,” said Baba Nuhu, an official with the Gujba local government.
According to Nuhu and Haruna Maram, brothers of one of the victims, the victims wanted to bring back their grains to augment their lean food supplies to feed their families.
“Unfortunately, they were killed by (the) same Boko Haram we ran away from,” Maram said.
Gujba is one of a handful of districts in Yobe that Boko Haram captured during a sweeping offensive last year. The area has been hit by waves of attacks through the six-year Islamist uprising, including a massacre at an agricultural college in 2013 that targeted students sleeping their dormitories.
In the last six weeks, Nigerian military and the multinational support from neighbouring countries have claimed a series of successes against Boko Haram in an operation launched in February. Scores of towns previously under rebel control have reportedly been liberated.
The region’s recaptured have been declared as safe by the military and outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan.
However community leaders in the region have warned there are still dangers lurking in the corners of the liberated towns.
Security experts have also cautioned that the Islamists are far from defeated and are still capable of launching hit-and-run attacks.
