Boko Haram, Result Of System Failure, Says Indicted Senator Ndume

BEVERLY HILLS, CA, June 01, (THEWILL) â€' Nigerians have been told not to see the five-year-old Boko Haram insurgency as the creation of politicians but the result of a system failure where all have failed to do the right thing at the right time in nipping the insurgency in the bud.

Stating this on Sunday in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, while speaking with journalists, the Member representing Borno South in the Senate, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, declared that the solution to the Boko Haram insurgency is not blame game as currently playing out but a drastic action by all because of the resultant general insecurity which the insurgency has caused.

The senator who is being tried in a Federal Court on terror related charges following his allaged link to the Boko Haram said, 'We should all take responsibility and stop trading blames, we should desist from concluding that politicians have failed the nation.

'Are politicians from Mars, did they go to special school to learn politics? They are just like any other Nigerian. The fact that I contested for an election and won does not make me a better person than you.

'If you are saying the Senate has failed the nation, who makes up the Senate? In the Senate today, we have a former National Chairman of Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the person of Senator Smart Adeyemi. Does that mean journalists could be singled out as having failed. The fact is that the Senate is made up of the Nigerian society as well as other arms of government.

'So we need not be so quick to seeing politicians as failures but instead look at what we can do as individuals to preserve the country,' Ndume said.

However, the Senator expressed optimism that the Emergency Rule recently extended for another six months in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States would be the last as according to him, the Nigerian Armed Forces are doing their best to rout the insurgency.

According to Ndume, the challenge had been the wrong perception of the Boko Haram crisis as religious, ethnic and regional problem, but

'with the realisation of the Federal Government that it is a national calamity and non-religious, non-tribal and non-regional, the first step has been won as discovery is the key to a problem.'

Ndume said: 'I believe we are almost there; we are about to win the war, the whole world is interested in solving this problem. The only thing that is needed is sincerity and the will of government.'

The Senator maintained that the Federal Government could still restore lasting peace to the troubled Northeastern states since the world is unified against Boko Haram. He therefore advised the Federal Government to key into this to ensure the return of peace to the three states.

He also expressed happiness at the resolve of the Federal Government to hold elections in the three states come 2015, saying 'We are still optimistic that election will hold. Elections have held in worse situation worldwide, even during wars; why not here.'