SEGUN TOMORI
The very vocal minority will rather you believe that it is all tales of woes under the present administration, but the truth is that the APC-led President Muhammadu Buhari administration has been silently doing a lot.
Once upon a time, in 2015, about the size of Belgium, in the North-east were under the control of Boko haram. At least 17 LGs in Borno, several others in Yobe and adjoining areas, were under the control of terrorists. Abuja, the capital city was unsafe, with bombs going off intermittently, and our people living in fear of the unknown – the spread of insurgency to other parts of the country, was imminent.
Gradually, our administration, with unflinching focus, have not only reclaimed all territories, but with clinical precision firmly degraded boko haram, such that today, deaths by terrorism have reduced by a whooping 92%, from 2,131 in 2015, to 178 in 2021 according to the Global Terrorism Index 2022.
This is not happenstance. It is as a result of the single-minded resolve of President Buhari to address the debilitating challenges of inadequate ammunition; lack of synergy and coordination amongst security services. For instance, in the Airforce alone, 38 new air platforms have been acquired since 2015, whilst another 55 are being delivered in batches, with some coming in this December, and others in 2023, before the end of the administration’s tenure.
We have also seen in recent times, the drastic reduction in contemporary security challenges of banditry and kidnapping across the land. Our gallant troops have taken the battle to them, wiping off most bandit commanders from the face of the earth, under the leadership of the Commander-In-Chief!
Asiwaju Tinubu in his _#RenewedHope2023___ manifesto has promised to consolidate on this with more boots on the ground for our military. The about 220,000 combined strength of our armed forces is acutely inadequate for a country of 220m people.
Decentralization of the Police service to permit State and Community policing is also on the cards, as well as technological advancements to intelligence gathering and ammunition; forest rangers to effectively police our vast forest reserves, also forms part of the Tinubu Plan on security.
I gave this background to show where we are coming from, so you can appreciate where we are going to…
Therefore, you can only trust the Tinubu plan and a party that has shown capacity with verifiable facts – the Global Terrorism Index 2022, don’t lie!
*Segun Tomori*
Member, APC-PCC (Strategic Communications Directorate)