Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari declared, on Monday, that he will be ruthless in his second term, in tackling the country’s security issues.
This was even as the president warned that those who describe him as ‘baba go slow,’ in his first term, will find out in his second term if he was slow or not.
Buhari disclosed these, during a special interview with the Nigerian Television Authority, on Monday night.
He said the Inspector General of Police alone cannot do everything, and so, depends on the commissioners and DPOs to achieve result.
“I will persuade the police and the Judiciary to be hard and where I discover that they are not hard, I will try and trace who is responsible for the slowness, in terms of commanders of police upward.
“The IG alone cannot do everything, he has to depend on commissioners, the commissioners have to depend on DPOs.”
Asked how he intends to tackle insecurity, since despite the degrading of Boko Haram, kidnapping for ransom is an issue now threatening the peace of the country, the president replied: “I feel very bad, indeed, because there is a failure of neighborhood security in the sense that those who are perpetrating these atrocities against communities and against the state and the country, come from somewhere in Nigeria. Their neighbourhoods know them and we have traditional rulers. And then, the police, of course, are on the front line. There are police in every major town or city in this country. I think they were not given the uniform and the rifle to impress anybody but to secure the people.
“I think the community leadership and the police, to some extent, have failed this country.
“…The assurance I can give to Nigerians is that I will continue to do my best.”
On the performance of his Service Chiefs and other enforcement agencies, against the backdrop of rising insecurity, Buhari said: “You see, all my life, I have gone through all these.
“I did virtually all the Staff and Command appointments from Platoon of 32, 36 or 40 people or whatever it is to division. It was on record that I was the only officer in the Nigerian Army that commanded three, out of the four divisions, then. The first division in Lagos, second division in Ibadan and the third division in Jos. So, the security, relative to the time I was in command, has really gone down.
“I cannot claim to know what was happening after I left the military the way I left. But, definitely, I didn’t know person to person, all the service chiefs I picked, I depended on records and reports.
“And, when we have a case of emergency, I don’t think it is the time to start disorganising or organising the military or any law enforcement agencies as such. You have to take your time to do it because these are institutions that they know their security more than every Nigerian depend on a strong center. We have no state police, we have no state Army, Air Force or Navy. So, those people know more than ordinary Nigerians that the centre has to hold for them to have security, both material and physical security. If they allow the centre to collapse, automatically they are the one leaving.”
Pressed on whether he was satisfied with their performance, despite giving them all that they required, the president replied: “I used very high standards…I am still expecting more but I am thinking of what happened between 1999 and 2014, I suspected a lot of things went wrong including accountability and efficiency of the military…”