•Report by Mudasir Opeyemi
The Federal Government on Tuesday berated former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar over a statement credited to him expressing surprise at the existence of Boko Haram insurgents.
Atiku had on Sunday during his Town Hall Meeting on Channels TV said that he could not understand the Boko Haram phenomenon, and wondered why Boko Haram continued to operate.
He said when he was serving in Borno State (when it was the North East)as a Customs Officer, he was patrolling the entire North East and remote areas.
“I still cannot find a place in the Borno area where any body can hide and cannot the seen. I cannot honestly understand the Boko Haram phenomenon.
“Sometimes when returning from Europe 30 feet above, I could see a man walking in Borno State. So, where is the place to hide?
“To the extent that they said there is a place called Sambisa, I have been there i didn’t see a forest it’s just shrubs here and there.
“We have deployed the Nigerian military which used to be the one of the best in the World they have fought in a number of theatres in the international arena and excelled.
“And here we are deploying the Nigerian military with all its might yet we cannot eliminate them,”
Atiku had said during the meeting
Reacting to Atiku’s comment, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed on Tuesday said Atiku should throw the question to his party, PDP “under whose watch the Boko Haram insurgency started in 2009 and festered.”
The minister gave the response at the 11th edition of the President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB)’s Scorecard Series (2015-2023)’ organised to showcase the achievements of the Buhari administration
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The 11th edition featured the Minister of Power, Aliyu Abubakar. who gave the scorecard of the Ministry in the past seven years.
In an opening remark, Mohammed said for six years until 2015, when the Buhari administration assumed office and inherited
Boko Haram, “he PDP more or less nurtured the insurgents to the monster they later became.
“Alhaji Atiku should ask his party why it allowed Boko Haram to operate freely, bombing cities, motor parks, schools and other soft targets unrestrained,” Lai Mohammed said
“Alhaji Atiku, who was then residing in Abuja before porting to his new abode in Dubai, should ask his party, the PDP, while it allowed Boko Haram to bomb the police headquarters, the UN complex, a Shopping Mall and Motor Parks in Abuja with so much ease.
The minister said with the efforts and sacrifices of the Nigerian military, normalcy had been achieved in the North East the region he described “home region of Boko Haram”
He said the Boko Haram terrorists had been cleared from most of their strongholds while the remnants were being restricted to the
Tumbus Island around the Lake Chad that were difficult to access.
“The former Vice-President may want to know that both kinetic and non-kinetic activities employed by the military have seen the
terrorists surrendering in droves, thereby freeing large spaces for normal socio-economic life to resume.
“The good news this year is that a bumper agricultural harvest is assured, as farmers were able to carry out extensive farming, which had not been possible since the beginning of insurgency/terrorism in the North East,” he said.
The minister admonished Atiku to, while on campaigning and throwing political jabs, should take note of the popular idiom that “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”