Presidential aspirant of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Oby Ezekwesili has come out to say that President Buhari has not been an effective commander-in-chief when it comes to the security of the nation especially dealing with the Boko Haram insurgency. In an interview with the premium times, the Ex- minister of information said; “The president has not been an effective Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces. He has not been! We cannot have any group whatsoever by whatever name feel this level of freedom to operate in our territory without the decisiveness of action that would end these monumental tragedies that we face all the time.
“I don’t know about titles. I know about productive and effective leadership. You can bear any title you wish but what I am interested in is, has the president been an effective Commander – In -Chief? I think if we put this in a public debate, the majority of Nigerians will say no…” She went on to outline her plans for security if she is elected president;“By the way, I need you to know that you would have the best Commander – in – Chief of the armed forces in me because what it requires is to actually care for your citizens, then you can make the calls that preserve their lives. Are we not today grieving the news that more than 100 of our soldiers have been killed in the frontline of battle? In other countries, they would still be mourning deeply but people have so died that Nigerians have become desensitized to death. My sadness is that the Nigerian child will actually grow up thinking its OK for people to just be killed with impunity and yet no consequence,” she said. She said the ‘first things’ she would do as the Commander-in-Chief would be to get a full update of all the killings in the regions, then make a technical assessment of strategies to adopt. 
“I have already read what is available as a candidate so when I get there, I will simply force it on all to know there is a new sheriff in town. The enemies of our country must know that we are at a mega level of response and that it will be we set the pace. So the first thing is going to be the technical assessment of what are our strategies towards curtailing any continuous evidence of freedom to operate. They cannot operate in the soil of Nigeria!” The ACPN presidential candidate also accused the ‘political class’ of turning the fight against terrorism into a money-making venture.
“We have not obviously invested the way we should and part of this is because people have created a military-industrial complex out of the terrorism situation. Counterterrorism has more or less become an industry for our parasitic class and because terrorism and countering of terrorism is now comfortable with the way things are, you can see clearly that our capacity to be decisive has weakened considerably. One of the ways to counter terrorism is to invest significantly in your intelligence asset and I know the world is waiting for us. There are ways to tackle this challenges, we are going to operate at the level of sub-regional, regional, continental and global partnerships.”
Photo Credit: Getty
