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By Sunday Ani
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has described action of those calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign following Boko Haram attack in Borno State where scores of rice farmers were killed as cheap and irresponsible. He said such calls amount to playing dirty politics with the issue of insecurity.
He said since President Buhari was elected in 2015 for a four-year term and re-elected in 2019, no amount of hysterical calls for resignation by anybody or a group of persons would prevent him from serving out his term.
He made the declaration yesterday in Lagos at a meeting with members of the Newspapers Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN).
The minister said the era when insurgents could stroll into any city to launch deadly attacks had gone with the coming of President Buhari in 2015. He stated that the insurgents used to depose and install emirs as well as collect taxes before the Buhari presidency but noted that those practices were no longer obtainable as the insurgents have badly been degraded such that they could only carry out cowardly attacks like the one against defenceless farmers in Borno.
“Suicide bombers used to have a field day detonating their bombs and killing innocent people. Detonating Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) used to be a deadly tactic of Boko Haram. Today, that has changed. Boko Haram used to occupy territory, deposing and installing emirs and collecting taxes. That’s no longer the case. Therefore, calling on the president to resign everytime there is a setback in the war on terror is a needless distraction and cheap politicking,” he said.
He insisted that no nation, no matter how powerful, is immune to attacks on soft targets. He cited the September 9, 2011 attack in America by Al Qaeda despite the prowess of the American Army reputed to be the most powerful in the world.
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Mohammed said the occupation of territories in the country by insurgents is now “a thing of the past.”
But the minister’s claim contradicts recent reports which say residents of the North East and some parts of North West pay tax to insurgents and bandits to have access to their farms.
The farmers killed in Borno at the weekend reportedly refused to pay tax to the insurgents before their slaughter.
He appealed to Nigerians to continue to support men and women in uniform by providing them with information about insurgents so that the war on terror could be brought to an end once and for all.
Mohammed also raised concern about the role of fake news and disinformation during the recent #EndSARS protest across the country, insisting that social media was used as a tool for mobilisation and guide to arsonists and looters to certain properties, both public and private.
He condemned NPAN members for allowing their various newspaper organisations to fall for all the fake news being circulated in the social media during the protest, as he accused them of joining the bandwagon.
He lamented that even when the Federal Government challenged CNN for its professional failure, reflected in the lack of balance and fairness in its investigative report, some newspapers still did not see reason with the government, until CNN backtracked.
