DESPITE assurances by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Coalition of Northern Groups CNG, has warned that the 2023 polls may be marred by lingering insecurity.
Thus, the spokesperson of the group, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, has charged the Nigerian government to urgently tackle the widespread intake of drugs and other dangerous substances.
Suleiman said the general expectation is that government would swiftly bring a conclusive end to security challenges.
According to him, “In the North especially, government, should, with the entire national resolve behind its efforts, work to achieve final disengagement, disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and reconstruction within the next few months.
“Unless this is done as quickly as possible, the 2023 elections would be greatly threatened and that would in turn affect the nation’s democratic progress and set the country back several decades.
“It is expected also that the federal government would review and improve the current structure of the national security assets, increase number of boots on ground, improve quality of equipment and greater synergy with the communities.”
The CNG said state governments in the North must get off their high horse and listen to advice and design a uniform approach to the situation with the full involvement of the communities.
The drug situation in the North, noted the group, is one of the most serious social and security challenges facing Nigeria today.
“The fact that the problem is insidious and not readily apparent is the more reason why it should be seen as an existential matter that needs to be addressed and tackled robustly and defeated once for all.
“No nation can aspire to greatness or seek to remain secure and safe when its youth and the productive segments of society are left to indulge in self-destructive practices like drug and substance abuse.
“Serious challenges such as the ones we are faced with ought not be treated with the level of levity and condescension shown by the governors of the affected northern states, neither should they be seen as affecting only one region or state or … one ethnic group or the other. On the contrary, such challenges are cross-national issues that affect every one of us regardless of where we live or come from,” he said.
For this reason, Suleiman said, the security problem must be confronted collectively with the entire will and resolve of the people behind the effort to build on the current successes by Nigerian troops in the North East and in the endangered communities and forests of northern Nigeria.
“Every one of us must therefore, become a stakeholder and a committed actor in this struggle to free our society and our country of this debilitating problem,” he concluded.
