To Tackle Terrorists, FG Must Stop Their Sources Of Funding, Arms, Food Supplies – Dogo

Dr. Isuwa Dogo is the Publicity Secretary of the Middle Belt Forum (MBF). In this interview with JOY ANIGBOGU , he speaks on the rising insecurity in the country, why the Federal Government should take decisive measures to tackle the menace, among other issues.

Excerpts: David Mark a few days ago lamented that herdsmen, who he called armed herdsmen, have killed a lot of Benue people and even the farmers don’t go to the farm any more. Then, you know, there was one Brigadier Tsiga that was kidnapped. I think they kept him captive for 56 days.



It said that the re­tired and serving generals contributed money to facilitate his release. When will all these issues of kidnapping, kill­ings come to an end? Look at what’s happening in the Plateau and Benue States. You know, how many people have been displaced? I’ve heard over 120 people have died so far.

I just want to know your thoughts on that? I will start by saying that I felt completely ashamed and disgraced that retired and serving generals were contributing money to rescue a kidnapped retired general. What I would have expected to hear was for the retired and the serving generals to go after the kidnap­pers, wherever they would be in Nigeria, and they cannot be out of Nigeria. And ensure they are brought to book.

But if generals, serving and retired, are contribut­ing money to pay kidnappers, then we are finished. Isn’t it shameful? I mean, you can just imagine. The word general, is it a small rank? General.

So whether the person is retired or serving, and you go and pay for kidnappers, what are they holding? Atomic bombs? If they throw the atomic bombs, will they be safe themselves? They will not be safe. That is the first disgraceful kind of thing that I have heard in a long time. Furthermore, I did not start saying it today.

As far back as 2010, 2014, and all what not, I have said it uncountable times. There are no herdsmen clashes with farmers. The people they say herdsmen are simply the terror­ists, funded by enlightened people, politicians, and others that are liv­ing in the cities.

If you look at the so-called Fulanis, let me put it in quotes, and I am saying it in quotes because it is not just Fulanis. Those people are simply employed and armed. You will see the person is all alone with an AK-47 moving around.

Is it only in the farms that they do it? No. If they say that you have 20 or 30 or 40 motorcyclists moving around and they will go to several villages, you will say that in all those villages, there are no armed people around? That is police and soldiers, and they will have a field day and kill 50 or 60 people, and they will get out safe­ly. It doesn’t make sense.

Now, if this thing has been happening in Plateau and Benue States since time immemorial? Now, I want to ask you this question. Is there any state in Nigeria today that doesn’t have a state police? So, the issue of formalising is a different ball game altogether. If Benue and Plateau States can have something like the Amotekun of the Western region.

They are free to arm those people to the teeth to protect their citizens. I believe that is what is supposed to happen. As T.

Y. Dan­juma said categorically, the armed forces have been compromised, and so you have to defend your­selves. Was it not on all the news media? Is it a person of that cal­iber that will say something and you ignore him? At whatever level of government, whether federal, state, or local government? So, if those states are even serious, and they form their security agencies, and they go to T.

Y., it’s likely going to even help them finance it. And I know there is no state that we don’t have people who are ready to finance those people that will defend themselves to the best of their ability.

You think that self defence will address the rising insecurity in the country? Furthermore, at the national level, we know Jonathan said it in the media, that they know those who are hosting it. Am I wrong? His national security advisor said so. Why can’t Jonathan tell the gov­ernment who those people were or are at that time, and if they are still in government or wherever they might be, to get them? Now, during Buhari’s time, it was al­leged that Boko Haram people who say that they have repented, were not only given money.

Remember? As alleged, they were given mon­ey, and many of them were put in the armed forces, army, police, air force, and all whatnot. Do you get it? Should that have happened? The answer is no. First, hold Jon­athan and Buhari responsible, and let them tell us why Jonathan did not tell Nigerians who those people are.

Let Buhari tell us why they were absorbing those people into the armed forces. Go to the armed forces. They can identify them wherever they are, whatever rank, and remove them and pros­ecute them.

There is no issue of forgiveness. Somebody has killed millions of people, and you say you are forgiven? In addition to that, the terrorist groups are not terror­ist groups. Do you know what they are? Same Boko Haram all over the country calling themselves terror­ist groups.

They just changed their names. They bear different names in different parts of the country. One, to reduce the federal govern­ment concentration on them.

Two, to make it less likely that even the states will say they are a serious group, even though they are more serious. Three, to make the inter­national community not to put an eye on them. But they are the same Boko Haram all over the country.

In 2014, I had a lot of programmes on television, newspapers, and all what not. And I said at that time, because you know when they bombed a Catholic church in Abu­ja? People in Borno in particular, danced and shared money on the streets. And I categorically stated in the programme which I talked on channels and AIT or whatever it was, that if Muslims do not join hands together to fight the crimi­nality taking place, by the time it gets to their turn, what is happen­ing to Christians will be a child’s play.

Is that not what is happening today? What is the way forward? There are three primary ways to stop terrorism or this criminali­ty. Stop their source of funding. If ENDSARS, they could trace them and block their accounts within hours.

Why can’t they trace these people and block their accounts and find who the people are and arrest them for almost 20 years? Second aspect is that you stop their source of arms supply. It is alleged that these people rent guns from the police, the army, the navy, the air force, and all other security agencies. How do they rent them? What is the way that these secu­rity agencies keep their arms? If the arms disappear in the night, where do they go? Who are the people in charge and how do they get out? Now, if arms are coming in from outside the country, how do they enter Nigeria and where do they go to and why is it that they can’t be stopped? Take, for example, the Sambisa Forest.

Does Sambisa Forest ex­ist under the ground? If those people come out with vehicles, how do they come out? How do they get back? It’s not possible for the armed forces to trace them? We even have easier ways of fighting these things using drones. They will say that Nigeria does not have the capacity to employ such services and destroy these people wherev­er they are, whether in the forest or inside the water or under the ground or in the sky. The third aspect is to stop their source of food supply.

They can’t stay there with­out eating. How do they get their food sup­ply? The food must be coming from the towns or cities or villages to the forest and it will be said the armed forces do not know how to trace or trail those that sup­ply them food and all whatnot. So, these three areas are the key most important ar­eas.

Stopping their arms supply, stopping their financial supply, stopping their food supply. If they don’t have food, they don’t have arms. If they don’t have food, they don’t have arms, they don’t have money to buy arms, will they exist? How long will they exist? Because whatever they have will spoil or finish if it’s not replenished.

So, it’s a question of time. Now, when this group, Lakurawa started in Sokoto just late last year with a different name. Didn’t they think that it was just a local group? But it is not.

It is the same Boko Haram with different names. In different parts of the country, whether you are talking of Zamfara, you are talking of this, you are talking of that. In fact, the illegal mining they talk of in places like Zamfara, they still employ the services of these people.

Now, let me tell you this. Is it difficult to identify what is being given to these peo­ple as ransom? Even in the bundles of money they give as ransom. They can put all sorts of security things there.

If it is new notes, they can have the numbers of those new notes given to them. And if they take them to the bank or anywhere, they can trace the accounts that the money has been paid into. Even the phone calls that they make.

Is it possible that somebody would say that even if they collect the tele­phone numbers of the people they have kidnapped, you have already known that the person is kidnapped? If they are us­ing his phone to make a call, wouldn’t you know that there is foul play there? Within seconds, you can trace where the call is coming from. As a matter of fact, they can see those people in the places where they are making the call. They can hold them and as they are talking, others will go to those forests and take hold of them in one form or the other.

These are realities. I’m not a security man. Are you getting me? But I’m talking out of common sense and what we know in the international world where it has been happening.

I was listen­ing to channels this morning. They were talking with two people that appeared to be security people. But you can see, there is a lot of ignorance.

And the truth is not being said with respect to how to handle these things. Now, come back to some local aspects. What is the number of policemen we have in Nigeria? Now, al­most every senator, even retired ones, but if you look at the senators, they go about with three, four, five armed policemen.

And if you have 100 senators, 500 police are going with senators. Now, how many members of the House of Reps? Assuming they have two, and you have 360 og them. So, that’s 720 policemen, right? We have oil companies, private companies, and even some thieves who call themselves rich people.

They have policemen guard­ing them. As a matter of fact, the police are more interested in going with those people. So, tell me how the police will do what is right.

But the worst aspect about it was that Babangida unilaterally disarmed the police. Let me put it that way. At that time, because there were rumors that the police were arming themselves to organ­ise a coup to overthrow him.

He did the same thing against the Air Force. When did Babangida leave the government? Why is the police not rearmed? And if the gov­ernment should ensure no policeman is supposed to be going with a senator or member of the House or any so-called rich man. But none of them.

They should be adequately paid and compensated and adequately armed. They should also be trained. Babangida sent military people who went and trained in Israel under the Mossad.

The Mossad is one of the most sophisticated security organisations in the world. It’s an Israeli government, the Mossad. Babangida sent them, and they went and trained there.

Some of them that were trained by the Mossad are still alive. Why can’t we send and train them with the Mossad and bring them back to Nige­ria and see what they can do? The money that people spend on the so-called security that is ineffective is more than enough to train the police and you have just two po­licemen that can do the work of 2,000. We are not going to have this problem.

And we have seen everywhere that when they send Nigerian security agencies locally to some international organisations they appear to be the best. Whether it’s the po­lice or the armed forces. So how are they the best internationally? Then locally they can’t do it.

Now a governor is more interested and senators and all what not to steal hundreds of billions. And then you run out of the country. To go and hide to spend it.

And when you come back to Ni­geria the wall of your house is as high as Mount Kilimanjaro. And you have several people roaming around. Those people are the same people that cause the insecurity.

Because you think that they are securing you, no. They are monitoring you to know the right place to strike. And they are the ones that provide in­formation to the terrorists in the bush and the forest or his terminal is in this kind of car.

This is a car number. This is what you should do and all what not. And that is why they still capture them and take them away.

The take-it-back movement protesters were tear gassed in Port Harcourt in Rivers State and Lagos and Abuja. Some people say that they have the fundamental human right to protest. Just like we saw in America and New York where thousands of people were on the streets protesting and the police were guiding them.

So why are they molesting these people here? The police missed the opportunity of writing their name on gold. The police that went to tear gas them if they had spent the time protecting them, the story would have been different. If they were having a police day, now they shouldn’t come out for protest.

Yes, those police were out to go and tear gas peaceful, armless protesters instead of protecting them from hoodlums who might infiltrate them and can cause havoc. Did you see any of the protesters carrying even a small stick? No. Only pa­per.

Can you use paper to hit me and I feel the pain? Or to shoot somebody? So the police missed a golden opportunity to have written its name on gold, if not platinum, let me put it that way. Instead of protect­ing the protesters, going with them, in the first place, what is it that those peo­ple protest that doesn’t affect the average policeman? They even suffer more. That is the truth.

So why should they say they want to listen to what hopeless, brainless politicians are deceiving them into doing what is wrong? It doesn’t make sense. So, that is my view on it. It shouldn’t have even been thought of thoughtless of going to tear gas them.

And they will have used the opportunity to protect these peaceful protesters and listen to what they are saying. Just like we saw in New York. In America.

There were millions. And the police were just there protect­ing them. And what I want to suggest now is to advise if any of them were arrested, they should be released.

And under no sit­uation if these people want to do peaceful protests, that police should be on the.