The Presidency, yesterday, admitted that the military has been overstretched by the rising security challenges across the country which is threatening Nigeria’s Unity and stability.
Presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, made this disclosure yesterday when he participated in a national television broadcast while fielding questions on the crisis arising from frequent clashes between herders and farmers across the country.
Shehu dismissed the recent allegation by Noble laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, that President Muhammadu Buhari’s ‘refusal’ to address the nation on the conflict between herders and farmers meant he was complicit in the criminal activities of herdsmen or sympathetic to them as the case may be.
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He said: ‘The president is more than concerned of the ongoing situation and he is fully conscious of the fact that it is the responsibility of his government to work with Nigerians to secure lives and stop the ongoing crisis whether they are kidnapping or the new line of ethnic violence. He condemns it and he does not support it.
‘The country’s military, as we speak, are overstretched because they are active in, at least, 34 of the 36 states including the FCT.’
The presidential spokesperson said community leaders must work with the president and security agencies to ensure an end to the crisis.
‘Community leaders — local and traditional — must work with the president. To say the president is doing nothing is because there is impunity and impunity is in the country because there are big men, VIPs,’ he said.
He urged the police to publish the list of suspected criminal herders facing trials at the moment.
‘We are not following up stories as media, otherwise, if you know the thousands of people… and I hope the headquarters of the police will take responsibility and publish the full list of Fulani herders who are undergoing trials in various states particularly in Benue state.
‘Trials are going on, convictions are being made and the president cannot be complicit; it is very uncharitable. The president cannot be complicit in the kinds of things being said of him’. He added.
The years-long farmers-herders clashes recently resurfaced in south-west states; Ogun, Ondo, and Oyo.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
