Bishop Matthew Kukah, a Catholic diocese in Sokoto, has claimed that young military soldiers who have a strong belief in their abilities to end the evil of banditry in Nigeria have a common sentiment.
Nonetheless, he acknowledged that there is a widely held belief that decisive action is hampered by a lack of political will at the highest levels.
Expressing confidence in the adequacy of Nigeria’s military resources, he posed introspective queries concerning the perversion of the security landscape into a political tool.
He stated that the systemic reasons behind the transformation of the fight against insecurity into a transactional endeavor, wherein addressing the issue lacks fervent dedication.
He advocated for a paradigm shift towards prioritizing substantive action over opportunistic exploitation of the nation’s security challenges.
He said in an interview with Channels TV, ”I speak to people in the security agencies, I speak to policemen, I speak to the military. And all we hear consistently and persistently is that, Young military officers are convinced that they can wipe out this nonsense called banditry. But there is a feeling that at the top, there is no political will.
I believe that the Nigerian military is pretty well equipped. The question we should ask ourselves is how and why is it that fighting insecurity has become so instrumentalized? To the point that it is looking as if ending insecurity is not something that there is a lot of enthusiasm about. It has become a meal ticket for quite a significant number of people across the board.”.
