Burutai To Tinubu: Lock Down The Country To Eliminate Terrorists, Bandits

Gen Tukur Burutai, a former Chief of Army Staff has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to “lock down” the country to be able to deal with the security threats such and banditry and terrorism ravaging the country.

The former Army Chief who spoke on Channels Television programme, Sunrise Daily on Friday said the same tactic that was used during the COVID 19 pandemic can be applied to end these threats.

In 2020, the covid 19 pandemic forced many countries including Nigeria to lock down their countries, thereby preventing movement in other to tackle the disease head-on.

Gen Burutai spoke on the heels of the attack and killings of dozens of persons in Katsina state by rampaging bandits. Security analysts insist that bolder measures are required on the part of the security agencies to end the activities of the killers, who are mostly operating in Nigeria’s North east.

According to Burutai, a slap on the wrist measures will only prolong insurgency and banditry in the country, calling on the government to take the same drastic measure used to fight Covid to end the menace quickly, adding that if serious measures are not taken it could prolong the security threats to the country.

He said the government had also used such drastic measures to tackle some problems, including flooding in some parts of the country, saying that such instances have proved  how government could mobilize resources and used coordinated efforts to tackle any serious problem confronting the country.

“We can lock down this country to make sure everybody concentrates and deals with this cankerworm called terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, and so on,” the former Army boss said.

Adding “If you can remember, just before I left office, and of course immediately when I left office, I was appointed ambassador of Republic of Benin, I sent a lot of warning that this insurgency may last longer. I don’t want to quote the number of years that I mentioned, but I said it will last longer. It is a sort of warning that we really need to have a long-term plan, it is not something that you will just wish away.

“For example, I am not trying to give any excuse but the point is when there is a national crisis, we need to mobilise everybody, not just the military alone. Look at COVID-19, how much was spent? How much was invested into information, into communication, into advertisement and so on, into palliative, into a lot of preventative measures so much that the whole nation was locked down because of COVID-19.

“But we can do the same thing, we can lock down this country to make sure everybody concentrates and deals with this cankerworm called terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and so on. It is very fundamental, very important.

“I want to take also another example, Maiduguri flood last year, the whole country mobilised and supported the Borno State government and people of Borno to bring relief to make sure that the people were rehabilitated in the whole of the state, and it helped a lot.

“The same thing can be done to mobilise everybody to the North East, to the North West, psychologically through social media, through the press, and so on. Individuals can support the community.”

The magazine had earlier reported that the federal government recorded a major breakthrough in the fight against terrorism and banditry recently, following the capture of notorious terrorists and al-Qaida-linked kingpins Mahmud Muhammad Usman of Ansaru and Mahmud al-Nigeri.

Until their capture, the two terrorists had been on the global most wanted terrorists. List.