Damaturu invasion: Nigeria under siege, says ACF

With Monday’s attack on Damaturu, the Yobe State
capital, by the outlawed group, Boko Haram, the apex
body of the North, Arewa Consultative Forum, said it’s
clear that Nigeria is under siege.
It asked the administration of President Goodluck
Jonathan-led Federal Government to, as a matter of
urgency, identify and dialogue with the real Boko Haram
leaders in order to halt the carnage in the North.
This was just as the Prof Ango Abdullahi-led Northern
Elders Forum on Monday, berated former Heads of
State, ex-president as well as current political leaders
from the North for their silence in the face of the
continued massacre in some parts of the region.
The ACF, through its National Publicity Secretary,
Muhammad Ibrahim, in Kaduna on Monday, said the
invasion of the Yobe State capital, despite the presence of
huge security operatives, showed that the level of insecurity
in the North-East of Nigeria had gone beyond the
nation’s military capacity.
The Northern body also asked the Federal Government
to stop the killings in the North-East by all means,
arguing that the recent attacks on Kano, Borno and Yobe
states were clear indications that Nigeria was under siege.
The statement reads in part, “We, at ACF, feel
saddened and really disturbed by the invasion of
Damaturu by Boko Haram insurgents, resulting in the
killing of innocent people and destruction of property.
“ACF notes that Nigeria is gradually sliding into anarchy
with territories being seized and taken over by insurgents
without any serious counter resistance from our military.
This situation clearly demonstrates that our security
agencies are poorly equipped to contain the spread of
insurgency.
“ACF will continue to call upon the government to
discharge its responsibility of providing security and good
governance.
“Government must, as a matter of urgency identify the
real leaders of Boko Haram and enter into a real
dialogue with them, with a view to bringing an end to this
blood letting.
“ACF also sympathises with people and government of
Borno and Yobe States over this unfortunate invasion and
bomb blast that have killed many people and left scores
injured.
On its part, while condemning the deadly activities of the
Boko Haram, especially the bombing of the Kano Central
Mosque last Friday, NEF also warned against any
attempt to use violence to infringe on the rights of
Nigerians to vote freely in the 2015 general elections,
saying such move would be vehemently resisted.
The Northern elders were reacting to the Kano Central
Mosque multiple bomb explosions, which left about 120
persons dead.
The NEF, in a statement by one of its leaders, Dr.
Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, a former Secretary of the
Independent National Electoral Commission, said the
silence of the past Heads of State, ex-President and
political leaders was an indication of their complicity in
continued violence, which had broken “the spirit, economy
and political capacity of the people of the North.”
The elders argued that the Kano massacre, during
Jumaat prayers last week, stood out as one episode that
had highlighted the degree to which citizens in the
Northern states lived at the mercy of terror.
The HEF added, “More shocking than the massacre and
the continuous occupation of Nigerian territory is the
silence of leaders from the North, particularly former
Heads of State and those who hold political positions
today.
“By their silence, people of the North are beginning to
treat them as complicit in the apparent conspiracy to break
the spirit, economy and political capacities of the people of
the North.”