Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, on Monday, affirmed that the nation’s security has fared much better under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari than the previous administration.
The minister, who took the president’s message to Zamfara State over the weekend when he assured that the Jangebe school girls abduction would be the last, met in a closed-door session with the president at the presidential villa, Abuja.
Emerging from the meeting, he recounted to correspondents how people were unable to go to their places of worship for fear of being bombed before the coming of the Buhari administration.
He said: “I think we forget so quickly. There has been a time in this country when governance even became terribly impossible. A section of this country is hoisting another flag. We can’t go to our churches or mosques. We can’t go to schools. We can’t go about doing our normal businesses.
“This issue of insecurity and the bombings that we have started right here at the centre of Abuja. There were moments when there were security checkpoints everywhere you went. There were moments when you couldn’t go to work, we couldn’t farm. A city of 10 million people in Kano, they rode through the 10 million people and got to the Emir of Kano and shot him. an Emir that reigned for 50 years.
“They bombed the Central Mosque of Kano, a thousand people died. Those are things of the past. Security challenges are things that are all over the world, in every single country. All the way to recent happenings that we’re seeing in the US and UK and everywhere.
“You can get mugged on the streets in the UK, you can get slaughtered also, but the important thing is, is the government doing something? Yes, it is? Is the government committed? Truly, it is committed.
“Don’t forget, the present President could be a civilian President, but he’s a true Commander-in-Chief and he had been there before and he’s doing his best. I am sure if you’ll do justice to this government, you’ll say it has done much better than it was before.”
Sirika assured that the Federal Government has put necessary platforms in place to ensure the security of all Nigerians, especially young school children, reiterating the there would no longer be instances of the abduction of school children.
He pointed out that it is not impossible that there may be elements who would want to embarrass the government by staging more attacks, saying however that government has necessary measures to safeguard schools.
He added: “They can try to do it (attack) to embarrass government, by government saying it will be the last. By the grace of God. It’s a possibility, but what Mr President is doing, and his government, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, has done everything possible to ensure safe schools.
“It has recently rejigged the national security architecture and it’s an ongoing exercise and everything that is possible to stop this, the government is putting it in place, and by the special grace of God, it should be the last this country will see.
“Yes, there may be a possibility that some people will try to do it to embarrass the government, but the government has the resources to continue to give the best in terms of security in this country. We think, and we hope, but especially by the grace of God, that this will be the last that we’ll see in this country.”
On a permanent solution to school abductions, he stated: “Well, first and foremost, as I said, the government has put things in place to ensure safe schools, in partnership with the sub-nationals, in partnership with the people that are localised in those environments, including intelligence gathering, information gathering, you know, and then supply of equipment and weapons and so on, so forth, training and retraining of security personnel.
“Everything that is humanly possible by any government to put in place, to ensure the security of lives and property, is being put together to ensure that this doesn’t happen. As I said, it’s an ongoing thing and the government is committed to it and will continue to do so.”
It would be recalled that Sirika relayed President Buhari’s assurance that the abduction of more than 300 girls from Government Girls’ Science Secondary School (GGSSS), Jangebe, Zamfara State, would be the last of such incidents in the country.
