The Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) has blamed the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration for the spate of insecurity in north. The Forum, in a statement, yesterday, by its Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, also decried the slow pace of the work on the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Highway.
NEF said that the state of disrepair of the highway had made it most attractive to kidnappers and bandits whose nefarious activities were responsible for loss of lives and property worth billions of naira.
It stated: “Northern Elders’ Forum received information from those with responsibility for the reconstruction of the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Highway that work on this vital artery in the North will not be completed for the next five years.
“The Forum is deeply shocked by this information. Although it is consistent with a registered record of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to matters affecting people of the North, it is nonetheless irrefutable evidence that this administration does not care about the people of the North, their economy or their security.
“The only thing that mattered to him were our votes. This administration has just sentenced northerners to another five years to live with many threats to life and economy on this important highway.”
The Forum, therefore, wondered why the highway project involving 375 kilometres linking the North and South was awarded in 2017 only for work to commence in 2018.
MEANWHILE, farmers in their hundreds from Egbe Community in Kogi State have protested against the incessant destruction of their farmlands and crops worth millions of naira by suspected Fulani herdsmen, urging the state government to intervene to avoid breakdown of law and order in the area.
The farmers, during the peaceful protest, urged the state government to call the herdsmen in the area to order to avoid incessant farmers/herdsmen clashes following the wanton destruction of farmlands and crops waiting for harvest.
Spokesman of the farmers, Mr. Wale Oti, who spoke with newsmen on the incident, said that the way and manner in which the farms and crops waiting for harvest have been destroyed were unquantifiable.
Oti, who stated that Egbe is a boundary town between Kogi and Kwara State with about 50,000 inhabitants whose major source of livelihood is farming, said that that majority of the farmers had been enduring incessant destruction of their farmlands for years, but situation became worst of recent.
However, when contacted, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in the area, who refused to volunteer information, however, said that the area was peaceful.
