METELE MASSACRE: 2 things Afenifere wants Buhari to do

Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has lamented the massacre of Nigerian soldiers in Metele, Borno State, by the Boko Haram terrorist group.

The group has therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately sack the three service chiefs and the Chief of Defense Staff, who it said were already in their retirement years but are still illegally kept in service.

While also demanding that government should probe defense allocations, the Afenifere regretted that the murdered soldiers were allegedly ill-equipped in spite of the “un-appropriated $1 billion” the government not too long ago claimed to have disbursed to equip the military against insurgency.

The group stated this in a communiqué following its monthly meeting in Akure, the country home of its national leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti.

The communiqué which was read by the group’s national publicity secretary, Yinka Odumakin, stated: “The massacre of our ill-equipped troops by the evil sect raises serious concerns about the state of our armed forces combat readiness in spite of the un-appropriated $1 billion the government claimed it disbursed months back to equip our military against insurgency.

“We were more pained at this tragic and monumental loss by the high insensitivity the Federal Government displayed on this matter.

“First, it kept quiet for six days after the incident and when it found its voice there were no soothing words for the bereaved families.

“Afenifere demands, as a first step, the immediate removal of the Service Chiefs, who are already in their retirement years but are still kept in service, by the President in what many have interpreted as partisan needs as we move towards the next elections.

“Their illegal stay, in spite of not being effective, has equally killed morale in the armed forces as three sets of officers have now had their careers stagnated.

“The sack of the service Chiefs should be followed with a probe of what has happened to defense allocations, as we as a people cannot reconcile our extremely vulnerable troops and wailing solders in the forest with the heavy spending the government claimed it has committed to security.”

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The group also decried attacks in Yorubaland by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

“The continuous criminal activities of armed herdsmen in the South West as evident in the kidnapping of six Ondo indigenes on November 14 as they were returning from Akure to Ikare Akoko.

“These unhinged security challenges continue to daily show that the country’s security architecture has collapsed under the crushing weight of unitary arrangement that concentrate the country’s Security apparatus only in the hands of the Federal Government,” Afenifere said.

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