To guarantee the safety of lives and property of citizens, the Federal Government has been called upon to stop the politicisation of security in Nigeria.

Making the call on Wednesday, November 26, while appearing on Democracy Today, a political magazine programme on the African Independent Television Network, the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Comrade Ini Ememobong, mentioned that “a National Bureau of Statistics shows that banditry, kidnapping and terrorism is a trillion Naira economy.”

While decrying a situation where government now issues orders for bandits and kidnappers to release victims, Comrade Ememobong called on the federal government to simply “issue the order that there must be complete cessation” of insecurity across Nigeria.

Emphasising the need to tackle the core issues around insecurity, he said the solutions being deployed by the Federal Government are enablers of insecurity, and saying that “as long as there is demand, there will be supply.”

He averred that “it is a very dangerous signal, where you now have state actors like the police and the people in government admitting that they meet and discuss with bandits who come with arms,” saying “there is no law allowing us to bear arms in this country.”

The PDP Publicity Secretary said the concern of his party “are the reactionary and simplistic disposition” of the federal government to insecurity and other issues. Citing the President’s directive to the National Assembly on states seeking to set up local police, he asked “What would the parameters be? How would they interface with the Federal Police?”

Speaking on possible solutions to the issue of insecurity, Ememobong stressed the need for the government to come clean on whether ransoms are paid to secure the release of victims . He berated the administration for what he called “the consciousness of optics and media,” where the picture of the President sitting with Service Chiefs floods the media space, “even when the real work remains undone.”

On the new presidential directive for the recruitment of more personnel into the police and other security agencies, he wondered how the new recruits, who would not be adequately trained, would be able to secure victory in battles where well-trained men and officers are finding it difficult to excel.

According to him, what is needed to win the fight against non-state actors is the political will to direct men of the armed forces to engage, whenever they are in the frontline of battles.

Indicating that Nigeria is faced with existential threat, he expressed happiness that the National Assembly has come to a point where matters of insecurity are being treated with the patriotic zeal it deserves.

He warned that “We must ensure that we do not, either consciously or unconsciously; expressly or impliedly, give an impression that non-state actors have overpowered our Federal Government.”

Ememobong, who spoke on the way forward for his party, expressed confidence that “all opposition parties will be protected, because a democracy that must thrive, will thrive on competition. It mustn’t thrive on emasculation.”

While envisaging an implosion in parties with strange bed-fellows, having multiplicity of interests, he said for the PDP, “we are consciously rebuilding the party, along the line of transparency; along the line of truth; and along the line of a pan-Nigerian party, which the Peoples Democratic Party was meant to be.”

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