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| Governor Murtala Nyako |
Who should carry the blame for the rising Boko Haram insurgency in the northeastern part of Nigeria?
To President Goodluck Jonathan, the governors in the zone should be blamed for not educating their citizens, making them available for recruitment by the Boko Haram leaders.
To Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa state, one of the states affected by the deadly insurgency that had killed over 1000 people this year alone: the fault lies with Jonathan’s Federal Government for not being able to rise to the security challenges.
Jonathan spoke yesterday at the North East Zonal rally of the PDP in Bauchi, capital of Bauchi state. Nyako, who used to be a member of Jonathan’s PDP and has now joined the opposition APC, responded today.
He described the President’s claim as unfortunate and insisted that it was the poor leadership exhibited by the Jonathan administration that had aided and abetted the rising spate of terrorism in the North.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state categorically that if there is any proof of bad governance, it will be located in the way and manner the President executes his priorities and the kind of statements he and his spokespersons make. Governors are not and cannot be held responsible for security challenges since they have no control over security apparatus. The President is the Commander-in-Chief with powers over the Armed Forces, Police and other security agencies,”Nyako said.
Jonathan stirred the controversy by locating the rise of Boko Haram to the lack of basic education. And he charged the governors to take charge and stop blaming their inept leadership on the Federal Government. To him, the federal government, constitutionally responsible for the provision of tertiary education, has done its bit. The states in charge of primary and secondary education had failed to perform their part.
“ Sometimes governors will come and say we have some issues because of bad leadership. I was governor, deputy governor before I became a governor. I spent eight years at the state level, I handled security challenges. That was the state where the first commercial kidnapping took place because of excess militancy. More than 70 % of the state is swamp. I knew how we handled things. A governor will come and say bad leadership, bad leadership from whom? If we have security challenges, whether you call them Boko Haram or whatever, these are people who couldn’t go to primary school, who couldn’t go to secondary school and they have no hope and miscreants or criminals now recruit them and using them; if you see what they wear, they wear rags and not normal clothes; all what they put on their bodies is not worth N10, but they carry rifles and bullets that are worth more that N250, 000. Somebody gives them food to eat so that they can kill.
”You ask how did we build this army of unemployed or unemployable youth? The Federal Government does not control primary education; it does not control secondary education, and a governor has been on seat for almost eight years and we have people in that state that can’t go to primary school, that can’t go to secondary school. You say bad leadership, who is the bad leader? Is it the Federal Government? I made sure that every state has a university. That is the responsibility of the Federal Government and I have done it.
“Governors must make sure that our children go to primary school, governors must make sure that our children go to secondary school. Somebody hide under the cover of politics and cannot do it in eight years or seven years plus. We still have do many children in your state that cannot go to primary school, not going to secondary school and you open your mouth to say bad leadership; is it the Federal Government or Mr. President that should come and take your children to primary schools? Federal Government by the constitution faces tertiary education. “
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