NATIONAL: Sultan-led JNI knocks Buhari over insecurity, says nowhere is safe in Nigeria

THE Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar-led Jama’atu Nasril Islam, has urged the Buhari administration to rise to its responsibilities and stop paying lip service to security matters.

Reacting to the recent killings of 43 rice farmers by the Book Haram terrorists in Borno State, the JNI said people now live in fear as “nowhere is safe in the country now.”

The religious body stressed that the Buhari government should move from its customary condemnation of attacks and offering of sympathies to the bereaved to taking deliberate actions to decimate insurgency.

The JNI spoke through its Secretary General, Dr. Khalid Aliyu, in a statement issued in Kaduna on Wednesday.

In the statement titled, ‘Press release: Requiem for Zabarmari’, the JNI called on the federal government “to rise up to its responsibilities and do well beyond the traditional condemnation, as lip service(s) on security matters should stop. Nigerians are desperately yearning for concrete actions.”

Specifically, the religious body said Saturday’s killings at Zabarmari village, Jere Local Government Area of over 40 rice farmers by the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents without intervention of security forces was condemnable.

It noted that with wanton killings occasioned by acts of banditry, kidnapping for ransom and other related crimes, Nigerians had been so terrified as nowhere is safe for them.

The group also knocked the Buhari government’s seeming nonchalant attitude to fate of the victims of the attack, noting that a prompt visit to the area would assuage the feelings of the affected communities.

The JNI statement read in part, “Forty-three human beings as reported by the media were slaughtered without any intervention by the security forces in the area. The senseless act stands condemned in the strongest of terms.

“Wanton killings, acts of banditry, kidnapping for ransom, high rate of unemployment among the youths, rape and all forms of terrorism have now become the new trend in our communities.

“Nigerians have become so much terrified, as nowhere is safe; the home, the farms and the roads. Bandits now rule in many communities; they set rules that must be obeyed.”