We Lack Soldiers, Military Equipment to Fight Insecurity says El-Rufai

Obiajulu Joel Nwolu

Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has attributed the failure in effective policing to uncoordinated and ineffective national level security response in dealing with security threats across the country.

This was contained in his speech during the live broadcast on Friday tagged, ‘The Fierce Urgency of Now: Tactics and Strategies to Pull Nigeria from the Brink.’

He said, “None of the military services nor other security agencies has been suitably expanded in numbers and equipment for over a decade since the insurgency in the North-East pushed things to a new level.

“This country does not have enough soldiers, uniformed police, or secret police to project state power across its vast swaths, particularly the forests. The limited number of boots on the ground are not well-equipped and are significantly lacking in the technology that can make their limited numbers matter a lot less.

“We should provide immediate and enhanced funding to acquire advanced equipment, armaments and ordinances for the armed forces, police, security agencies and paramilitary agencies by drawing down from the pool of various rainy day federation funds like the Excess Crude Account, Natural Resources Account, Stabilisation Account, and so on, so that our security services will have the material to face the criminals that menace us. “

The governor added that restructuring required an immediate national consensus to collect more taxes at federal and state levels for the governments to be viable.

“This also means we must stop pretending that the regulated rates of lending, interest rates, exchange rates, prices of petrol and electricity, as well as the salaries in the public sector are realistic, sustainable and will lead us to the Promised Land. These are decisions for the here and now,” he said.

This post was written by Obiajulu Joel Nwolu.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

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