The Federal Government has said the current wave of insecurity is the greatest challenge to the peace and security of Nigeria since the civil w@r.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this during a joint security conference in Abuja on Monday, September 5.
According to him, “The security challenges have been daunting, from terr@rism to banditry to kidn@pping to separatist vi@lence to crude oil th€ft to armed r@bbery and sundry crimes. It’s undoubtedly the greatest challenge to the peace and security of our great nation since the civil w@r from 1967 to 1970.
It is the kind of challenge that would have overwhelmed many nations, but thanks to the purposeful leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, we can say, I want to repeat, that the worst is over and peace and security are gradually returning to the land.
Please don’t misunderstand or misrepresent this assertion. We may still witness isolated cases of security challenges here and there, but it will not be on the scale that we have witnessed in the past.
Some said the security challenges have overwhelmed the military, but the military has now demonstrated that no group of ragtag crimin@ls can ever overwhelm them.
Terr@rists and bandits and co can run but cannot hide, and this has been demonstrated by the arrest of those who att@cked a church in Owo. These crimin@ls can run but cannot hide, as we have seen in the decimation of the cow@rds who ambushed the Brigade of Guards troops in Abuja.
I am sure you will hear from my colleagues how our military and other security agencies have been decimating the top echelon of ISWAP and Boko Haram, how armed bandits camps and resources have been destr@yed, and how the capacity of IPOB/ESN has been substantially degraded.”