Borno state governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima is obviously angry with the leader of the deadly Boko Haram today, saying: “Shakau is a lunatic. He is a deranged element. He is not somebody anybody should give any molecule of respect. His actions are beneath the act of even an animal, believe me.”
Shettima, who spoke to newsmen today shortly after a security meeting in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, to review the nation’s battle with Boko Haram, was particularly reacting to a statement credited to Shakau that the sect had married out the over 200 Chibok girls they abducted for their school in April last year.
Governor Shettima vowed that Nigerian government is not resting on its oars, saying: “we will continue to support the military by providing them with quality information when it becomes available. We believe in spite of people’s pessimism that in the fullness of time and not in a distance far off, we are going to get back the girls, we hope to.”
He vowed not to bolster Boko Haram by giving information in its favour “because these lunatics fist on the oxygen of publicity. The more publicity they get the happier they become. I don’t want to give them that luxury.”
The governor made it clear that Nigerian government had no any option than to win the war against Boko Haram, adding with emphasis: “we shall, we must, and we have no option.
“I want to assure you that with 1,000 years of recorded history, Borno shall rise again in spite of all the challenges. Believe me, Insha Allah.”
On how safe it would be to hold forthcoming election in the troubled areas, the governor regretted that people dwell more on elections than the threat which the insurgency had casued to “our culture, to our people and to our civilization. It is amazing when people dwell so much on the elections. Elections are for the living but elections are being conducted in war torn Afghanistan. Election was conducted recently in Iraq, in Syria and so many other places. So it is not an issue in contention, the most important issue is how to safeguard the lives and properties of our people. Hour to recover our lost territories; the lot of Chibok girls. You have daughters; you have sons how will you feel if your daughter is forcefully taken away from you for the past 267 days. So I want to dwell more on how to safeguard the lives and properties of our people, how to get back the Chibok girls, how to recover our lost territories.
“Two days ago (Sunday), it clocked exactly five months since Goza fell to the insurgents, Bama is now firmly under their control. Muba, Abadam, Kukawa are all tale of woes, of devastations, of destructions and of killings. This is the sad tale that is coming out of Borno.”
When the governor was reminded that he is the chief security officer of the state, he blew out: “I am the chief security officer of the state in name. You and I know that I neither control the police, the army not even the damn Civil Defence Corps. We are titled chief security officers of our states. But our most important task is to offer whatever support, be it logistics, financial to the military to carry out on their operations.
“Honestly, I don’t want to dwell on the politics behind the counter-insurgency operations because we are one people with a common destiny. And this is the time for all of us, irrespective of differences in political affiliations, religious persuasions, tribal or sectional backgrounds, to collapse into a single course and bring about this madness to an end.” [myad]
