The Southern Nigeria People’s Mandate (SNPM) has urged President Bola Tinubu to approve the recruitment of four million personnel into security agencies to eliminate insecurity in the country.
The Chairman of SNPM, Chief Augustine Chukwudum, told journalists on Sunday in Enugu that inadequate security personnel had made bandits and terrorists operate at will and for hours unchallenged.
Chukwudum noted that it was regrettable that for over 15 years, “there is no end to banditry, terrorism and heinous crimes within the northern part of the country.”
He said that the insecurity in the North is drifting to the South-West and the current dimension “is overwhelming security personnel.”
The chairman said that some personnel of security agencies had been in the frontline battling these bandits and terrorists daily for over a decade.
“We are rasing this alarm because things have gotten out of hand with the way human life are wasted daily, and nobody knows who the next victim will be.
“The violent and criminal non-state actors have taken over 85 per cent of farmlands in the northern part of the country; formed their own government and forced farmers and communities to pay taxes to them.
“Those who resist are kidnapped and asked to pay huge ransom running into several millions of naira yearly,
“The same pattern of insecurity by non-state actors is drifting to southern part of the country especially the South-West and it is already making prices of food stuff to skyrocketing,” he said.
The chairman reminded Tinubu about his campaign promises that he would deploy drones to effectively fight insecurity.
He also called on the federal government to mobilise security personnel to arrest and prosecute people who are dealing on dangerous drugs, which instigate violent crimes especially among youths.
