United States Secretary of State, Mr. Mike Pompeo, has pledged Washington’s readiness to use all tools at its disposal in the fight against terrorists in Nigeria and West Africa.
Pompeo, after the virtual meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, co-hosted by Nigeria, said “great progress” was made at the meeting.
He tweeted: “Great progress was made at yesterday’s virtual Global @Coalition to Defeat ISIS meeting on West Africa. We will use all tools at our disposal to counter ISIS and its affiliates anywhere in the world. My thanks to Nigeria for co-hosting the event.”
And Nigerian Senate, yesterday opposed the federal government’s programme of deradicalising repentant Boko Haram members towards their reintegration into the society.
In addition, it called on the federal government to unmask and prosecute sponsors of terrorism.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Army, Senator Ali Ndume said: “We are still calling on the Nigerian government that those that are directly or indirectly involved in Boko Haram activities should be brought to book and used as an example. I think we have not been up and doing on that.
“We are in disagreement with the government on the issue of deradicalising and reintegrating (Boko Haram repentants). We still maintain that. You can’t be resettling people, pampering them while the war is on. The committee is on the same page and I believe many Nigerians are on the same page with this.”
“In my village, mallams that are Muslims, not ordinary Muslims, but mallams (clerics), elders above 60, quote me, 75 of them were taken to an abattoir and slaughtered by Boko Haram.
“Can you imagine that the Nigerian Army or the Nigerian government is saying that because these people have gone to repent, or they say they have their hands up, you bring them back and pamper them.
“If you give Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Borno N150, 000 as pack as they give them (Boko Haram repentants) we have 10,000 of them there…. they are displaced, suffering. They know these people that killed their people, it is wrong.”
“In a period of war where the country is borrowing and is planning to spend N13 trillion, government is budgeting less than N30 billion as capital for the Nigerian Army. The committee’s position is that as a matter of urgency the budget of the Nigerian Army should be increased.
“Not only that, we are advocating they should be front rolled, that means if they sign the budget, you give them their vote so that they can start their procurement process because unlike other procurement that you can buy here, buy there, the Nigerian Army’s have to be processed. Before you even finish the process, it takes a long time,”
“We have engaged the Nigerian Army and we are going to engage the executive to make them understand that based on what we oversight, what they budgeted, they need to increase the budget of the Nigerian army.
“So far, we are on the same page with the executive. We are going to work together and make them understand that there is need to increase allocation to the army. Some of them do these things and present it to Mr. President without him knowing the implications.”