Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says Boko Haram’s random attacks can be checked with local intelligence gathering and community policing efforts.
He stated this while expressing sadness over Saturday’s killing of 43 farmers in Zabarmari, Jere local government area of Borno State.
The vice president spoke on Tuesday in Nasarawa, where he is on a one-day working visit.
Re-echoing President Muhammadu Buhari, Osinbajo said that the insurgents had acted dastardly by killing innocent people, who had gone to their farms to work.
According to him, only an “insane” person shoots or kills defenceless people.
“I spoke to Gov. Babagana Zulum and the former Governor, Sen. Kashim Shettima, to express my condolences but more importantly, to try and think through ways of dealing with this kind of random attacks.
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“It is important to understand also that we will probably need to keep reviewing the conventional means of dealing with some of these issues, these security challenges, especially the randomness,’’ Osinbajo said.
He stated that the president had pledged to take a serious look at how to deal with the issues, especially the randomness.
“Some insane person goes into a place and shoots people. That is not the sort of thing that you are prepared for conventionally.
“We have to do a lot more local intelligence and some of the community policing efforts we are planning on. So that information is supplied faster, especially at the local level and then a reaction will then be possible.
“It is a major tragedy. It is a very unfortunate thing and our hearts are with the family of those who were killed in such a terrible manner.
“Our hearts are with the family of those who were killed in such a terrible manner.’’
The vice-president said the Federal Government was confident and would continue to do what it needed to do, especially in terms of trying to ensure security in the Northeast and Nigeria at large.
“You have heard the president and what he has to say, especially some of the new ideas around security and the security architecture which we are trying to put in place.
“We will get there,’’ he said.