Former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has blamed successive northern Governors for failling to develop the region and eradicate poverty.
Besides, El-Rufai who said no option should be off the table when seeking peace with Boko Haram, however stated that the sect is a group of terrorists who should treated as such.
El-Rufai who spoke on a Channels Television programme Tuesday morning said that such insensitivity had led to the insecurity and developmental challenges facing the region.
“I think the state government has a role in the sense that the root of these problems, in my opinion, has to do with bad governance and more than half of the issues related to governance are within the purview of the state governments. I think governors in many parts of Nigeria, particularly the north have failed to discharge their basic responsibility. This is an issue and it was built up over the years to lead us to where we are”, he stressed.
He however described the activities of the Boko Haram sect as targeted at undermining national security saying members of the group must be treated as terrorists. He however did not rule out the possibility of the federal government granting amnesty to them.
In his words, “Any group that takes up arms against the state is a terrorist group. So Boko Haram is a terrorist group. But we have had terrorist groups in the past. The Niger Delta militants were terrorist groups because they took up arms against the state but they were given amnesty without conditions.
“So let us not start to differentiate between this and that and just say, let’s start with the answer. And what is the answer? The answer is we want security in our country. And how do we go about it. You look at every possible solution so that our country will be secured. And nothing should be off the table. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We should be ready to look at every possibility so that peace can be restored into the country”, he opined.
While blaming the federal government for failing to curtail the insurgent, the former minister pointed out that the task of providing adequate security in the country is the sole responsibility of the federal government just as he insisted that the resources available to states could not be enough to invest in areas like agriculture, education, health and infrastructure development in addition to handling security challenges at the same.
“Having said that, I want to say that security is a federal problem. The constitution vests all security powers and instruments in the federal government. The state governor has little or no control over the spending of the security agencies. And that is why primarily, this Boko Haram challenge is a federal problem. The governors can’t do the investments in education, health, agriculture and infrastructure that are needed in the long term to eliminate the poverty and the inequality that have exacerbated this problem. But it is the federal government problem largely”,he said.