President Goodluck Jonathan has said that he believes the
leader of the insurgent group, Boko Haram, Abubakar
Shekau, responsible for thousands of deaths, will be
apprehended by government forces before Nigeria’s
elections starting March 28.
Mr. Jonathan disclosed this in an interview with Thisday
newspaper on Friday.
”God willing we will catch Shekau before the elections,” Mr.
Jonathan said in response to a question on what his
government is doing about Mr. Shekau’s threat to disrupt
the elections.
Mr. Shekau, whose group has killed over 15,000 Nigerians,
has remained elusive since the sect launched its series of
deadly attacks in 2009.
In September 2014, claims by the Nigerian military that Mr.
Shekau had been killed during a shoot-out turned out to be
a hoax.
Efforts by the Nigerian government to improve the capacity
of the army through arms procurement have been
repeatedly frustrated by foreign authorities as claims of
human rights abuses loom over the military.
But government forces have made significant gains in the
war against Boko Haram in the last two weeks, reclaiming
some areas seized by the militants.
Mr. Jonathan admitted that the strength of Nigeria’s
military was not commensurate with its position as Africa’s
largest economy, adding that his government is determined
to look inwards for arms procurement.
“Concerning the military strength being not at par to that of
Nigeria’s economic development, there are some countries
that don’t have powerful military,” Mr. Jonathan said.
“I don’t think Switzerland has a very powerful military.
There are some countries that were even doing away with
their military until this issue of terror, and now some of
them are reconsidering.
“What happened in Nigeria is that after the civil war we had
no reasons to buy sophisticated weapons. Since after the
civil war, all what we have been doing is peace keeping,
apart from stabilising Liberia and Sierra Leone, where our
soldiers really fought war to stabilise those countries.
“Back home, we were at peace with our neighbours. It is
now that we are witnessing Boko Haram that we see that
fighting them is not what we do with AK 47, and now we
have to look for money. I totally agree with you, if Brazil
can manufacture commercial helicopter, what stops us
from going into manufacturing.”
The president further said that if re-elected, his
administration would focus on local technologies for arms
production.
“Recently, we wanted to buy tear-gas from a country and
they were bragging and saying that Nigeria has human
rights abuse issues. I kept wondering what is tear-gas? I
vowed that God willing if I return, Nigeria must produce
tear-gas,” he said.
“What is the technology of producing tear-gas for God’s
sake? What is the technology of producing APCs and
armoured tanks? I agree with you that in terms of
manufacturing, we must and we have no choice than to get
into it as a nation. That is why we are emphasising about
local content in production; that you can witness in the
automobile industry which has come back.”
Mr. Jonathan also said that more companies would be
issued licenses to produce arms, to complement the
Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria, DICON.
“Just last week a company that bought over the machine
tools in Osogbo came to show the bullet proof vest that
they produced and I asked them, can’t you produce
weapons and they claimed that they can manufacture
weapons if they could be patronised and there is a
guarantor,” said the president.
“Yes we have our own DICON, but DICON alone cannot
produce all our weaponry. We must have more than two,
three companies in a big country like Nigeria.
“I told the company that immediately after the elections, if
I’ll be here for the next four years, before they start going
for weapons, all the tear-gas that we’ll use in Nigeria, will
have to be produced in Nigeria.” CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
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