Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof Itse Sagay says failure to frontally tackle insecurity in the country could undo all the achievements of the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
He stated this in an interview published by Sunday Sun.
Sagay, while disagreeing with the widely-held notion that there is no hope for a united Nigeria, said, “I think that is a wrong assumption, there is no need to be pessimistic.
“No doubt, we are having a lot of problems, a lot of challenges right now. For me, the worst of the problems is security problem. It’s very bad that we are witnessing such frequently. That is very bad.
“I am not sufficiently involved in governance to be able to say we are doing the best that we can.
“But as an outsider to that extent, I am a little bit impatient with what is being done; I feel we can do better. The bandits and the kidnappers, all the herdsmen and so on, are being given too much leverage by not being tightly monitored and firmly dealt with, particularly, what is happening in Kaduna, Zamfara, Niger etc right now is just too much to tolerate.
“It’s as if we don’t have security forces, these people are running riots. I just heard in the news this morning that 67 people were killed, I think in Niger State, that is not acceptable. Our government should find that unacceptable.
Read Also: DSS reacts to planned violence in North Central
“The truth is that the security situation is so overwhelming now that if it is not brought down to a minimal level it may affect the assessment of the success of this our government at the end of it.
“It may just overwhelm and totally cover up all the immense success that the government has achieved in so many areas, in infrastructure for example, it will cover it, in social development, it will cover it, even the unappreciated successes in the war against corruption it will cover it and quite a number of other good things done by this government.
“So, we need to bring it (insecurity) down so that the true narrative of the achievement of this government can be properly situated. This insecurity is robbing off or perhaps, rubbishing the accomplishments of this administration.”
Sagay also doubled down on his stance that it is the turn of the Southern part of the country to produce the president in 2023.
“It’s the turn of the South. You know we do it zone by zone and the Northern zone will soon complete their eight years and it has to come to the South. I have no doubt about that in my mind, nothing has changed my mind about that,” the legal luminary stated.