By InfactNG
The former governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu has blamed the continuous terrorism in northern part of the country on the nonchalant attitude of the governors in 2015.
Aliyu in an interview said some northerners made it difficult for Jonathan to defeat Boko Haram.
He said “It is really unfortunate that we have allowed the situation to reach this level, and let me say again, I don’t want to be misconstrued as being in that group- this is a cumulative issue. When Boko Haram started and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan’s government started doing something about it, it fell on former President Jonathan to carry on.
“Many northerners misconstrued his (Jonathan) position at that time and for political purposes, they threw many arguments that made it impossible for the proper articulation and proper implementation of policies that would have got rid of Boko Haram and now, we still have them till today. The banditry that many of us thought was impossible to happen, I am yet to hear from anybody about the statement credited to Kawu Baraje, our former PDP national chairman in Kwara State, when he stated that they brought the bandits or Fulani from other places. I think based on the thinking that probably former President Jonathan wouldn’t have handed over power even if they had won, but he handed over.
“He congratulated them even before the conclusion of proper counting of votes which then took away whatever purposes of bringing those people would have served and I would have thought that if that is true, then those who brought them in would compensated them to go back to where they came from.”
The ex-governor added: “I believe if the governors had really done a lot from 2015 to date, we would have got rid of the banditry but today, it’s so unfortunate that you probably have to be praying when you leave Abuja for Kaduna or Kaduna to Abuja or indeed, particularly in the northern states.
“Any road that you follow, you probably need a lot of prayers and this is contrary to the position before where many of us were driving from one place to the other, used to sleep in the daytime so we can drive at night when there will be less traffic, less noise. Now, even in the day time, you can’t drive freely and comfortably. So, I believe that the first port of call for fighting insecurity is the governors. Maybe you heard me in Kano when I was saying could one be greater than 19 because at one time, even though the circumstances were different, we had one man for 19 states and now, we have 19 governors and still, we have more problems than we did the last time.”
