Gov. Zulum urges Nigerian gov’t to hire mercenaries to fight insurgents
Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State has urged the Federal Government of Nigeria to hire mercenaries that will help security agencies to tackle the rising insurgency in the North East.
Zulum made the disclosure at the weekly briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team led by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina in Abuja, he said the mercenaries will complement the efforts of the nation’s security agencies.
His position is at variance with that of the Federal Government, which in March 2021 said it would not hire mercenaries to fight insurgents.
Reacting to the Federal Government stance, Zulum said nothing is wrong with the government hiring mercenaries to address the challenges of insecurity, particularly in the North-East zone of the country.
“While the challenge of insecurity is being solved gradually, it is not yet over. I have said it times without number that in addition to what we are doing, there is a need for government to rethink and look into the possibility of hiring mercenaries.
“To me, there’s nothing wrong. America, Britain many other countries that are stronger than Nigeria, used to seek support from outside. There’s nothing wrong because this problem has been compounded.
“And it’s not easy for us to solve the security challenges that we’re having now. While Nigeria is providing a lot of things, the Federal Government is buying equipment, there is the need for us to seek support from external agencies, to defeat these insurgents once and for all before the matter reaches other parts of the nation.
“This is very important whether we like it or not, we have an existing gap that we need to fill and this gap by now cannot be filled without external support’’, Mr Zulum said.
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The governor also stressed the need for the Federal Government to sanitise the recruitment processes into the army, police and other security organisations.
According to him, over $6 billion worth of property had been lost in the last 13 years as a result of insurgency in the North-East region of Nigeria.
He affirmed that the insurgency that ravaged the zone was responsible for poverty and other socio-economic challenges facing the region.
“The insurgency has triggered acute humanitarian and post displacement crisis, devastating social and economic impact on the population, further deepening fragility and poverty in the North-East region.
“The outcome of the recovery peacebuilding assessment by the World Bank, EU and UN revealed that a total sum of about $6.9 billion was lost as a result of the insurgency in the entire North-Eastern states. Out of this, Borno State accounts for over two-thirds.
“The insurgents have destroyed about 5,000 classrooms in Borno, about 800 municipal buildings have been destroyed, including local government secretariats, prisons, and traditional rulers’ buildings among others.
“Furthermore, they destroyed about 713 energy distribution lines and 1600 water sources.
He also disclosed that a lot of resources had been ploughed into processes of restoring peace in the state.
“Significant amounts of resources had been injected into the implementation of the security strategies; financial, material, logistics and motivational,” he added.
He acknowledged that the state government had shown great commitment to the relocation of displaced persons, with farming activities now picking up.
Governor Zulum lauded the Federal Government and her security agencies for playing a big role in the peace process as he said the natives had also contributed their own quota towards the restoration of peace, by volunteering intelligence.
“The first effort we made towards securing Borno was through intelligence sharing, which is very important.
“We considered the communities’ participation as very important and the community-driven approach of re-establishing peace in Borno has yielded positive results.
”We have our local intelligence, who normally provide feedback to the government and the military with a view to addressing the lingering insecurity in Borno,” he explained.
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