The National Security Adviser, Maj.- Gen. Babagana Monguno (retd) has been urged to work with other Service Chiefs in the country to move the nation’s war against insurgency forward.
In an open letter to the NSA by the Northern Patriots, the group decried what it called “lack of strategic thinking and actions by the NSA’s office to address the non-kinetic component of the war against insurgency in Nigeria thereby leaving the military and other security agencies alone in what ordinarily should be an all encompassing warfare.”
In the letter dated 26th June, 2020, the group said Nigeria cannot make much progress, ”if we continue only to arrest or kill only the terrorists’ foot soldiers and ordinary members, as that would be akin to treating only the symptoms and not the disease.”
The Northern Patriot said, ”The Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai has in all ramifications done so much and is doing everything to bring the insurgents on their knees. We do appreciate him and what the military have done so far. But we understand that there are limitations on the part of the military including those that we may not know as non-security personnel.”
”The military has done much by killing many of these criminals and arresting their informants, but this is like hitting the body of the snake without cutting the head.
”We want you to be going to your home state of Borno more often and consulting with other stakeholders who know so much about these groups and would be willing to guide you on the path to success.
”We want you to reopen the dialogue channel with the insurgents using some of our elders.
”Another curious thing we noticed is that while our neighbours are known to arm these terrorists, Nigeria continues to do business with them pretending not to know what is happening.”
