PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has affirmed that insecurity is declining in the country. He stated this in his goodwill message to felicitate with Muslim Ummah on the occasion of Eid-el-Malud issued by Garba Shehu, his Senior Special Assistant (Media and Publicity) on Monday.
He used the occasion to comment on the increased activities the Armed Forces, Police Force, and intelligence agencies have embarked upon to effectively respond to the security challenges in the nation.
According to the statement, Buhari affirmed that the government fully expected and intended for the trends to continue, and called on the media to “address the tone, content, and standards of reporting into security and safety measures. Time has come to revise the prefixes ‘rising insecurity’ with ‘declining insecurity.”
The president added that increased cooperation and collaboration from the citizenry, coupled with reinvigorated, dynamic, and energised police, security and military leadership would help the administration score more victories against terror, criminality, and economic sabotage.
He added: “The reality of declining insecurity should replace the inaccurate narrative of rising insecurity in the country.
“While there is work to do, the men and women in uniform who are helping the nation to achieve this goal desire our collective appreciation and encouragement to do even more. The whole country and its mass communication systems have a duty in this regard.”
It could be recalled that recently the precarious security situation necessitated calls and visits by prominent traditional rulers to President Muhammadu Buhari in the villa for more proactive actions.
According to an Amnesty International report, at least In August, more than 112 people were killed in a month in Plateau and Kaduna. In September, gunmen attacked a village in Kaduna, killing 34 people and injuring seven others.
Human rights groups also estimated that the death toll of violence between January and June 2021 in Anambra, Imo, Abia and Ebonyi states might run into hundreds. According to a report by Aljazeera, dozens of people were killed in three separate attacks in different states in Northern Nigeria.
In September, scores were killed in attacks on the military base in Kaduna. Besides, bandits have been on the prowl in Sokoto, Niger, Zamfara, Katsina and parts of Yobe in the last few weeks, with some governors calling for self-defence.
In July, suspected Islamic militants killed 18 people when they attacked a village in North-East Nigeria. Audu Bulama Bukarti, a senior analyst on Sahel security at the Tony Blair Institute, identified five biggest security threats: Jihadism, clashes between herders and farmers, banditry and kidnapping, separatist insurgency, oil militancy.