A former Minister of Education, Prof. Tunde Adeniran has said that the reign of terror by the Boko Haram insurgents on Nigeria and Nigerians would continue unless the federal government was able to channel its effort towards stamping out terrorism in the country in the right direction.
The professor of politics disclosed this during an interview with journalists in Abuja , where he stated that the federal government should do the right thing by going deep down to the root cause of Boko Haram.
According to Thisday, he noted that any effort put in place by the government would be futile without tackling the root cause first.
“When you are fighting a situation, either it is weeds on your farm or some sicknesses and diseases, don’t content yourself with dealing with the symptoms, go down deep to the root, I’m a student of strategic studies, some of us have studied them, and we know that unless and until we go down to the root, the problem will not be solved, no matter the promises made, no matter the effort made, if the efforts are not made in the right direction, we will not get the appropriate result.
“What we need to do is to cry out the more, to shout, to call on our government of the day to please do the right thing by going down to the root causes of Boko Haram, once that is done we will find the solution, because we have not done that, that is why we are still having this sporadic bombings and killings,” he added.
The PDP chieftain explained that the asymmetrical nature of the war had made it difficult for the military to crush the insurgents, stressing that; “unless we understand the logistics, we will not be able to get it right.”
Adeniran emphasised that Nigerians must not see the Boko Haram insurgents as a partisan issue, noting that it was not a Jonathan problem, or a Buhari problem, but a Nigeria problem.
He pointed out that the danger posed by the sect was not to the government, but on Nigeria state and Nigerians as a whole.
“Every Nigerian community is a potential target that has to be factored into the planning process. That is why every inch of Nigerian soil should be regarded as a potential target for Boko Haram attack, we are at war, it has taken us a long time to appreciate this, right now I do not even believe that the degree of appreciation is high enough,” he noted.
On the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in the past one month, Adeniran stated that he didn’t understand why people were complaining, adding that he believed a leader should think and plan before acting, rather than act and now begin to think, thereby regretting some actions.
“How far one could delay depends upon the magnitude of the challenges of the problems on ground, by taking his time, by thinking through, I believe that by the time he decides to move, it is only then that we will be able to assess that the waiting is actually worth it.
“But the delay so far, I don’t see what the country is missing as far as I am concerned, by now he should have had a better over view and understanding of what the Nigeria is all about, some people are anxious that he should have appointed this or that, appointed them to be doing what, is there anything that is not being done now that would have been done by some ministers or by secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF),” Adeniran queried.
