NewsRescue
From our Editorial board, we continue to provide our audience the best intelligence and security updates as is our trade-mark.
With all said and done, the major facilitators of Boko Haram, the Jonathan government now dismissed from the corridors of power, other culprits in the prevailing Boko Haram saga must be removed or suspended for true peace and salvage to come to Borno and the larger north.
Governor Shettima Failed Totally As Governor To Tackle Boko Haram
The administrator of Borno state has failed in several key aspects to curb the menace. The failure of the Borno government as we have highlighted since the beginning of Boko Haram crises is largely responsible for the terror Nigeria experienced from these rag-tag bunch of hoodlums.
Like his predecessor, Ali Modu Sheriff, Governor Shettima of Borno state did not put the safety of the citizenry first and cannot account for the billions in state budgets and security votes.
While we at NewsRescue made several calls for more serious action against the terrorists, the government of Borno folded their arms and watched as Boko Haram occupied almost the entire state without being known to ever raise alarms on the thousands being killed and abducted.
In contrast the impeached governor of Adamawa, Murtala Nyako for instance is remembered to have in human conscientious reaction to a worst pogrom in recent human history, made public calls for attention to the massacre and holocaust in the region. The governor of Borno quietly watched as almost all of Borno was taken over by Boko Haram and thousands of girls and women were abducted and raped while thousands of Borno youth were forcibly conscripted or killed.
It can be recollected that in 2013 when Boko Haram had first conquered most local governments in Borno, it was our exclusive report that brought Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan from his visit to the South of Africa to come and declare a State of Emergency and deploy troops to Borno. Had it been up to the governor of Borno, Borno state would have fallen into the hands of Boko Haram since 2013.
Unlike the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who upon seeing the carnage of Boko Haram, called for the people to pick what weapons they can and defend themselves the governor of Borno sat in his fortified palace and watched as only Maiduguri was protected and the rest of the state was controlled and ravaged freely by the terrorists without ever supporting citizen defense or calling for federal or international assistance. See: NewsRescue–Governor Kashim Shettima: Give Your People Guns To Defend Themselves
“If I speak [about Boko Haram] heads will roll” – Shettima, May 2014
It is further recollected that governor Shettima in 2014 confessed that “if he spilled the beans on Boko Haram, heads will roll.” This governor knows the sponsors of Boko Haram and as such is a threat to Nigeria. The incoming government needs to get the governor to spill the beans and get the heads rolling if they are serious in dealing decisively with the Boko Haram menace that has brought Nigeria to its knees.
Probe Borno Administration on Security Budget Over The Years
While billions of naira have been allotted to Borno state for security vote, the governor of Borno never supported the citizens to protect them and barely takes care of displaced victims of the terror. While the brave youth and other vigilantes and hunters asked for the right to bear arms and government support to defend their towns and villages, the governor of Borno folded his arms and did nothing.
Compare to Adamawa governor Ngilari who when Boko Haram captured the north of the state after the phony cessation of fire last year, immediately worked with and sponsored the Ibn Fadlallah warriors who defeated Boko Haram and liberated Mubi and other towns disgracing the Jonathan government.
We expect the incoming Buhari government to fully probe the Borno administration on how it has spent the billions budgeted for security.
Bags of relief food donated by the state government to displaced persons have been branded with the governors image being used illegally for political campaigns.
Further more, there have been allegations of relief materials being shared among politician families in the state instead of being given to the victims of Boko Haram. We expect all these allegations of gross misconduct to be investigated.
It is a surprise to NewsRescue that the northern governors rather than query the administration of Borno state for the obvious gross errors that in collaboration with the treachery from Abuja, seat of the Jonathan government, led to the intractable and continuous deaths of thousands, suffering and displacement of millions, rather apprized him by making him head of northern governor’s forum.
Video of Auno Well, just 25km from Maiduguri capital shows poverty in Borno in spite of billions in state budgets
