Boko Haram: Soldiers are under-motivated — Donald Duke — Daily Times Nigeria

The Former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, has ascribed the incessant attacks by Boko Haram and the military’s failure to secure the North-East to under-motivation of the soldiers, Daily Times gathered.

The former governor, who spoke last night on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme monitored by the Daily Times, also called for the reprimand of all intelligence agencies of the government for every Boko Haram attack, going forward.

Daily Times had earlier reported that at least 43 rice farmers were beheaded by Boko Haram insurgents at Zabarmari in the Jere Local Government Area of Borno State on Saturday. The attack is one of the horrific attacks carried out by the terrorist sect this year.

Reacting, Duke said, “Regarding the North-East, we have to strengthen our intelligence gathering, we need to motivate them, we need to motivate the soldiers out there but more importantly, we need to institute consequences into our nation.

“We talk about the killings in our nation and in each state, we have the police, they have their intelligence arm; we have the DSS, they gather intelligence; we have the Army, they gather intelligence; we have the Navy, they have an intelligence arm and we have the Air Force, they do the same. But these things happen and none of these intelligence bodies, about five, six in every state, know; they are all taken unawares and there are no consequences. And that is the problem, there must be consequences because they are paid to look out for the people.

“There is a need for the complete revamp of our security network. We can’t go on like this definitely; we are losing our country.

“The soldiers in the North-East should be motivated, they are under-motivated. We need to task them on intelligence gathering and strengthen their firepower.”

Duke also noted that there should be police presence in every five kilometres. “Presence is a deterrent,” he said, adding that crime is now sophisticated in Nigeria and so, unemployed graduates who can think more intelligently like the criminals should be injected into the force.

He, therefore, tasked the states to join efforts with the federal government on improving the nation’s security system by employing more hands in the security of lives and property.

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