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I can count 187 times President Buhari has said he will end banditry without results – Fayose

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Former Governor of Ekiti State, Peter Ayodele Fayose has lamented the frequency with which President Muhammadu Buhari promised to end insurgency and given directives without success.

Mr Fayose expressed his dissatisfaction with the current state of insecurity when he appeared as a guest on Arise Tv programme, Arise News monitored by NewsWireNGR on Thursday.

Mr Buhari on Tuesday declared Zamfara State as a no-fly zone and banned mining activities in the state after a meeting with the National Security Council.

He said this was as a check to curb the increasing insurgency happening in the state.

The President also ordered security agencies to shoot on sight any unauthorised persons seen with AK-47 or sophisticated weapons.

Reacting, Fayose said he has counted up to 187 times Buhari has promised to defeat gun-wielding bandits but that he has not been able to defeat them.

“I have counted 187 times the President has said we will defeat bandits, we have defeated bandits, we have made improvement,” he said.

“As good as that saying is (Buhari’s directive), it has become like just talking to Nigerians. Not until we physically see the military, the security agencies do the right thing that is not founded on ethnicity, religion; then we will believe that the president is making an order.

“I can make an order without a backing. You can say whatever you like to calm down nerves and just listen. Is the president just waking up to know that bandits carry weapon AK-47.”

Fayose continued that the government words about not paying ransoms to terrorist herders who have carried out a series of school kidnappings cannot be trusted because the rescue operations have been sketchy.

He said, “They have told us severally, we do not give ransom, but they brought back these girls or boys with about 20 buses, How did they get away? It is a compromise between the security agents in my view and the environment and understanding of the people profiting from these dastardly acts.

“In Jonathan’s government, one of the things that took him off his feet is the Chibok girl and it has become a business. In another one or two weeks, you will see it again. If you do not pay ransom, how did you now get in touch?”

Fayose also waded in on how the centralised police structure of the country is aiding insecurity and rendering governors helpless in solving insecurity in their states.

He said the governors are mere Chief of security in their states by position and not authority because a state commissioner of police can disregard the directive of a governor without consequences.

“They have to decentralise a number of things at the centre. I am not talking of restructuring.

“If I am a Chief Security Officer and I tell my Commissioner of Police to take an action and he does not take it. There is nothing I can do. The governors have no power, they only fund what they have been told to fund. Or when there is crisis and they tell them we need money to buy fuel. The governors are simply helpless.

“The next layer of government is the governor. This country is in trouble and the governors are the ones who can save this country. If we set aside their political lineage, let them come together to save our country.

“Sometimes, it is not about what the Inspector General or CP can do but what can be averted.”

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