President Muhammadu Buhari , during his condolence visit to Plateau State, has advised against inflammatory statements that may aggravate crisis in the country. While admonishing security agencies to up their game in ensuring the safety of all and sundry, he called on leaders at all strata of the society to be careful about the kind of information given to the media on crisis situation.
For instance, he condemned aspersions made about him condoning activities of herdsmen who had perpetrated atrocities across the country. Hear the president: “The Benue subsistence farmer knows that the Nigerian cattle herder that he knows doesn’t carry nothing more than a stick, occasionally sometimes something to cut grass to feed his cattle.
‘‘But the present herder, I am told, carries AK47 and people are even blaming me for not talking to them because maybe (they say) I look like one of them.
‘‘There is some injustice in these aspersions”.
President Buhari said in spite of the challenges in the security sector, his administration has made some notable successes.
Governor Simon Lalong who requested for special federal government emergency intervention because of the level of destruction, said of the attacks ‘‘We are concerned as a State that the sophisticated weapons used in these attacks, from the evidences on the ground and the narrations of victims, are not those conventional to our environment for self-defence but reflective of a terrorist invasion.
‘‘It, therefore, demands a justified response like that which was undertaken to address the Boko Haram insurgency”.
