Police men and other paramilitary officials would soon be redeployed back to areas hitherto captured by the terrorist sect, Boko Haram but were recently liberated by the Nigerian Military troop, the Minister of Interior, Lt. Gen. Abdulrahaman Dambazzau has said.
The Minister, who was accompanied to Maiduguri by head of agencies under the Ministry of Interior as part of assessment visit to the troubled states of the North-East said the visit was on the instance of the Minister of Defence who requested for redeployment of policemen and other personnel to the reclaimed areas in order to establish back civil authorities.
The minister, who paid visits on the Borno State Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima and the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Garbai El-Kanemi and was also at one of the internally displaced persons camp and the Maiduguri Maximum Prison, said immediately his team gets back to Abuja, plans would be put in place to start the redeployment of policemen and other paramilitary officials to the reclaimed areas.
At the Government House Maiduguri, he told Governor Shettima that he was in Borno State and will be proceeding to Yobe and Adamawa states after receiving a request from the Minister of Defence for the deployment of policemen and other personnel under the Ministry of Interior to the state affected by insurgents to re-establish civil authorities.
He said: “We are in the state as part of effort to speak to the governors in the affected states and have on the ground assessment of situation.”
“We are going to bring more personnel so that we can have back in place civil authority in the affected areas and to assist the military in the task of bringing security back to the areas”, he added.
He also disclosed that the visit was for the purpose of assessing the situation on ground, noting that he may have to come back with the head of agencies to re-establish civil authorities in the reclaimed territories.
“I have come with the service chiefs under my ministry; they may be coming back to you the governor to work out modalities with you”, he said.
Responding, Shettima said the police were the first major targets of the Boko Haram terrorists and acknowledged that the men of the National Security and Civil Defence Corps were the major source of information on Boko Haram.
He also praised the men of the Nigerian Immigration Service for their bravery in the fight against the insurgents, stressing that they were the first to record a major interception of ammunition from the insurgents.
He said they were able to intercept large catchment of arms and ammunitions which the insurgents were bringing into the country after they have passed various security checkpoints.
He lamented that all the paramilitary agencies suffered a lot from the insurgents with the destruction of their facilities and killings of their men.
He however admonished leaders of the North to brace up to the challenges of leadership especially with dwindling revenue and population explosion with its impending poverty.
He said: “We need to wear our thinking caps those of us from the north so that we can found solutions to the impending crises that may consume the zone.”
The Shehu of Borno, who praised the effort of the Buhari administration to bring an end to the crisis, asked the minister to consider offering employment to many unemployed youths in the state that had contributed a lot to seeing the insurgency to an end.
He lamented that many people were affected by the crisis and that the assistance of the federal government was needed to bring palliatives.
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