National Security Adviser Babagana Monguno on Thursday declared that the nation’s security brass does not possess all the wherewithal needed to defeat the hydra-headed security challenges besetting the country.
“We are in a difficult situation. The council understands. The president understands,” Mr. Monguno, a retired Major General, told State House correspondents on Thursday.
“But there is no straight, cut and drive method around this unless we collectively fight it,” the security chief pointed out.
Noting that Nigerians are “getting tired” of worsening insecurity under President Muhammadu Buhari regime with many gradually resorting to “self-help”, Mr. Monguno said the challenges could only be solved through concerted efforts.
“People are getting tired and are beginning to gravitate into other means of self-help. But the truth is that help is rooted in everyone working together to end this,” Mr. Monguno said.
President Buhari convened National Security Council meeting on Thursday as armed bandits and Boko Haram terrorists advanced their attacks around the nation’s seat of power in Abuja.
Earlier in the months, bandits attacked.
Mr Buhari’s advance convoy in Katsina, while Boko Haram terrorists raided Kuje Prisons, freeing their members into the nation’s capital on the same day.
On July 5, Boko Haram jihadists broke into the Kuje Medium Security Correctional Centre, freeing their members in custody among other hardened criminals being held at the facility. This was on the same day that bandits ambushed the presidential advance party in his Katsina home state, killing a top police chief while others were injured.
On Monday, bandits killed three elite officers of Presidential Guards Brigade in Bwari, Abuja, barely a day after a terror group in a video threatened to kidnap Mr Buhari and Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai.
These developments have forced the government to shut down schools in Abuja in a move to avoid attack on schools.
Disturbed by increased insecurity the country, some federal lawmakers have given the president a six weeks’ ultimatum to solve the security crisis failing which they will initiate an impeachment proceeding against him.