The Muhammadu Buhari administration says those behind insurgency in the country will be taken out and get to the end of the war, Adesina, a presidential aide has assured.
“Those who are behind this insurgency will be taken out, they are being taken out one after the other and it will get to a point that the last of them will be taken out.
“Then we will get to the end of it; it can be done within 17 months that remains for this administration, I believe so. It can happen,” the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, said on Monday on “Sunday Politics”, a Channels TV programme monitored by Persecondnews.com
President Buhari had in August told the security chiefs that he was not prepared to leave office as “a failure” and that he was determined to turn things around in the war against insecurity.
On the routing of banditry and other forms of criminalities in the country before he leaves office in 2023, Adesina said: “Nothing is impossible. I always refer to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. That rebellion lasted for 28 years.
“But one day, the mastermind of that rebellion was taken out. And that was the automatic ending of it.”
On the rocket-firing capacity of Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) targeting Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, Adesina described it as “scaremongering to force President Buhari to cancel his official visit to the state”.
Persecondnews recalls that multiple explosions had rocked Maiduguri on Thursday, December 23 with rockets landing on many houses around Ngomari, Bulumkutu and Ayafe near the airport just few hours before Buhari’s visit.
“They thought they will succeed in getting the president to cancel that visit and that was why they possibly did what they did.
“But we see that the President still went ahead with the visit and from all indications, it was very successful visit. It is sad that some people lost their lives in that attack but it shows you the cowardly nature of those behind these attacks.
“It was some sort of scaremongering. They wanted to frighten the president away, but they had forgotten that this President is a retired general, they had forgotten he is a man who can stand his own,” Adesina, former editor of Sun newspaper, said.
On the claim by the government that the insurgents had been technically defeated or degraded, he said “everything that has been said is true.”
“Yes, everything that has been said is true. Because if you consider the nature of this insurgency from 2009, when it started till now, it has mutated in very many ways and the current shape and state of it cannot be compared to what it was in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015.
“Because if you consider the nature of this insurgency from 2009 when it started till now, it has mutated in very many ways.
Well, let me start from the first aspect of what you said that we have had expressions like ‘technically defeated’ in the past.
“No, a lot has been done to weaken them. The technical word is degrade, a lot has been done to degrade those aggressors. And we can compare what happens today to what used to happen, it is just a matter of ending this thing.
“That was why the President said in Maiduguri that we’re in the final stages of the war against insurgency and I believe we are in the final stages. That was what he also told the security chiefs at the Security Council meeting to end this thing. It is starting to end.
“I believe that with all Nigerians working together, cooperating and collaborating with the security forces, we will end it very soon,” Adesina hoped.
According to him, bombings as it was prevalent in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 had reduced drastically.
“Mr. President desires a conclusive end, a conclusive stop, possibly a taking out of all the brains behind these evil actions.”
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