“We will restore civilian authority in liberated areas” – Interior Minister

BY ABDULLAHI ISAH, MAIDUGURI

The Minister of Interior Lt. General Abdurrahaman Danbazau has said that the ministry is working out modalities to redeploy men and officers of the Police force and other para-military organizations to the liberated communities in the North-East with a view to establish civil authorities.

General Danbazau who stated this at the Dalori Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Maiduguri said they were in the state to study the security situation with a view to go back to plan and re-strategize on how to redeploy their personnel to establish civil authorities in the liberated areas.

The minister who was accompanied to Maiduguri by head of agencies under the Ministry of Interior as part of an assessment visit to the troubled states of the North-East, said the visit was at the instance of the Minister of Defence who requested the redeployment of policemen and other personnel to the reclaimed areas in order to re-establish civil authority.

While at the Government House Maiduguri, the minister told Governor Shettima that immediately his team gets back to Abuja plans would be put in place to start the redeployment of policemen and other paramilitary officials to the reclaimed areas.

He said after his visit to Maiduguri, he will proceed to Adamawa and Yobe states after receiving a request from the Minister of Defence for the deployment of policemen and other personnel under the ministry of interior to the states affected by insurgents to re-establish civil authority.

He said: “We are in the state as part of effort to speak to the governors in the affected states and have on the ground assessment of the situation. We are going to bring more personnel so that we can have back in place civil authority in the affected areas and to assist the military in the task of bringing security back to the areas.”

He said: “I have come with the service chiefs under my ministry; they may be coming back to you the governor to work out modalities with you.”

Responding, Shettima said the police were the first major targets of the Boko Haram terrorists and also acknowledged that the men of the National Security and Civil Defence Corps were the major source of information on Boko Haram.

The governor praised the men of the Nigerian Immigration Service for their bravery in the fight against the insurgents, stressing that they were the first to record a major interception of ammunition from the insurgents.

He said they were able to intercept large catchment of arms and ammunitions which the insurgents were bringing into the country after they had passed various security checkpoints.

He lamented that all the paramilitary agencies suffered a lot from the insurgents with the destruction of their facilities and killings of their men.

He however admonished leaders of the North to brace up to the challenges of leadership especially with dwindling revenue and population explosion and impending poverty.

He said: “We need to wear our thinking caps, those of us from the north so that we can find solutions to the impending crises that may consume the zone.”

At the Palace of the Shehu of Borno, Shehu Alhaji Abubakar Ibh Garbai El-Kanemi praised the effort of the Buhari administration to bring an end to the crisis and asked the minister to consider offering employment to many unemployed youths in the state who have contributed a lot to seeing the insurgency to an end.

He lamented that many people were affected by the crisis and that the assistance of the federal government was needed to bring palliatives.