Speaking at a press briefing in Kaduna today, the Secretary General of the Northern CAN, Elder Saidu Dogo said the division of the country has become necessary in view of the wanton destruction of lives and property by boko haram members in the Northern region.
According to him,“If Nigerians are serious, then from here we have to move forward, call a spade a spade, and move Nigeria forward. If we want to stay together, let’s stay, if not everybody should go his own way. We cannot continue this way with this type of killings and so on and so forth. Some people do not want Nigeria to stay as one. It is important that this marginalization must stop.
“If you know what CAN stands for, CAN was formed in 1964, and why was it formed in 1964?. There was an attempt to actually stop the expansion of Christianity in the North and Christians in the North decided that if we don’t unite and speak with one voice, we will be run over. So all the Christians denominations decided to unite, forged ahead and formed this united body so that they would be in a position to defend Christians in the North. If you look at it now, all these talks about indigenes, non indigenes in Plateau State, people are just playing to the gallery.
“If you go to Katsina, Sokoto, Kano you have indigenes who are Hausa/Fulani, they have no other towns, no other local government, but they are being discriminated, they cannot be commissioner, they cannot contest for local government chairmanship because they are Christians. It is the Muslims in the North who started trouble in Nigeria, most especially in the North, the records are there.
“Someone carrying trailer load of beer across federal high ways to another country, and some people somewhere attacked it and destroyed the whole beer, all his earnings and living collapsed there. Nobody said anything, and you want Nigeria to remain one? There is no law in the country that says someone should not sell beer. These are some of the things we are saying that discrimination against Christians is more in the North.
“Let me tell you, believe you me, Boko Haram will fizzle away, our population is not up to America’s population, but as soon as the 9/11 incident happened, they put in place all mechanism; today you cannot go to America and terrorize them and do what Boko Haram is doing here.
“What is our population compared to America, and look at the amount of money we are having in this country, we are in the position in this country that even if a fly comes to any local government in Nigeria you will know. If we are determined to fight insecurity in this country, we will do it. But the issue is that, because of massive corruption, if you vote billions of naira for security, it will go into private pockets. Nobody will give any information. Anybody can cross from Niger, Chad illegally to Nigeria and have all he wanted and go free whereas individuals are stockpiling this money and taking them away.
“Honestly if we have a government that is serious both at the State and the National levels, am telling you that this crisis can be checkmated. This thing was done before, so I just want to tell you that if there is determination by the government, this thing can be checkmated by the government. If the United States and other countries have done it, why not Nigeria?.
“There are elements of truth in what the former Inspector General of police, Ehindero said recently that police intelligence unit is obsolete to withstand Boko Haram because when E-Department was cancelled and National Security Organisation {NSO} which is now the State Security Services (SSS), they were on changing this thing but it is no longer effective.
“When the police had the E-Department, it was purely confined to intelligence gathering for the police force which work hand in hand with Criminal Investigation Department (CID), so in any place, you have any problem, even before the problem comes, the Commissioner of Police, the DPOs in that locality will know exactly what is happening, and within a shortest time, trouble will be curtailed, and the ability of anybody to cause problem will not be there.
“But look at what is happening now here in Nigeria, an Inspector General of police cornered Billions of money, what was that money meant for? It was supposed to be for information gathering. Up till today, information money is not being utilized. We have people in the rural areas, farmers, hunters and cattle rearers, these are the police informants in those days, especially during the colonial era. So any suspicious movement, even at the borders, these people will report. But it is longer there. It is very unfortunate. So that is why I said if governments at all levels are determined, they can stamp out the issue of Boko Haram.
“And let me tell you this, Boko Haram does not have the type of ability to bomb people outside the initial place where they were initiated, that is Maiduguri, Borno State. There are people who are actually using this opportunity to operate under Boko Haram, the Boko Haram does not have the ability to do what they are doing. It is individuals, people know them very well, who are sponsoring them. Thank God some of them have been arrested. Government can fish out all the Boko Haram members if it is determined, and that will be the way of stamping them out.”
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