By Dickson Blessing
2/4/2015, 9:18am
The president elect of Nigeria Gen Muhammadu Buhari(Rtd) has reassured Nigerians that his adminstration would tackle Boko Haram in the north eastern part of Nigeria within two months of resuming office.
He said this in an interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN on Wednesday 1st of April 2015.
He said the federal government made some mistakes in tackling Boko Haram insurgency and promised his administration will solve the problem. He explained;
“we know how they started and where they are now and we will rapidly give attention to security in the country. And I believe we will effectively deal with them in two months when we get into office.”
He stressed on the need of the neighbouring countries to join forces in fighting the militants. “We will be needing the cooperation of neighbouring countries such as Cameroon, Chad and Niger. There were efforts made by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, but it was not good enough and it came rather late,” he said.
Buhari pointed out that the past adminstration did not make good use of the military. “We expected the Federal Government four years ago to sit down with these countries and make sure they do not allow the terrorists free movement across borders, training facilities and movement of weapons.
“These were only done a few months ago and we have seen how Cameroon, Chad and Niger are fighting Boko Haram more than Nigeria is doing until recently. Really we have seen enough and we have enough law enforcement to face Boko Haram squarely.”
The president- elect assured that his administration will perform differently, he also blamed the poor performance on corruption in the military.
“They will…if you recall, the Nigerian soldiers out of all ethical expectations were granting interviews to foreign journalists, saying they were being sent to fight terrorists without proper weapons
“And then the National Assembly attempted to conduct a hearing to find out how much money was approved for training and weapon in the last three years but that hearing was scuttled by the administration.”
