A former Deputy National Chairman (South-West) of the Peoples Democratic Party, Bode George, has expressed concern over President Bola Tinubu’s handling of the insurgency in Nigeria.
The PDP chieftain, who was featured as a guest on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today, noted that the recent multiple suicide bombing in Borno State was an indicator of that fact.
The coordinated attacks, which took place in Tashan Mararaba and Gwoza towns, targeted a wedding, a hospital, and a funeral ceremony, resulting in significant casualties.
Vice President Kashim Shettima confirmed that the death toll from the bomb blasts had risen to 32 during his condolence visit to the affected victims and their families last Monday.
While narrating his experience as a former combatant in the Nigerian Army on the live television programme, George threw his weight behind the introduction of state police as a panacea to stem the resurgence of insecurity in the North East.
He said: “One key thing with the military where I trained, unlike the policemen, is that when you got to war and have your enemies facing you frontally, it is either you kill them or they will kill you. It is no big deal. But when you now have social unrest, you then deploy the military. If any of them is killed, you respond with the most potent force to fight back.
“We had suggested, I am talking about the constitutional conference committee formed under former president (Goodluck) Jonathan, that the need to have state police cannot be futuristic, it is so urgent.
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“You know, when we go to war, you have a defined enemy. But in this case, it is an insurgency, insecurity within. You don’t know who is who. They can come out in the day and pretend to be part of one area. But at night, they turn out to be something else.
“What you need will be people within their community to police them. They know themselves, they know the do’s and don’ts of that culture, and they know the rules of the people in that culture. So, they would be better off to be able to manage any issues within their communities. For God’s sake, we need the state police.”
