The All Progressives Grand Alliance has expressed optimism that the persistent attacks on rural communities in the country would be curtailed if Local Governments were granted autonomy.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that many rural communities had come under severe attacks by unknown gunmen suspected to be herdsmen, in the past five years.
Many have been killed in the attacks that displaced millions of people across the nation.
But Malam Musa Saidu, APGA Chairman in Nasarawa State, who reviewed the security situation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday in Lafia, said that local governments had the capacity to tackle insecurity “if the chief executives have the resources”.
Saidu said: “The local government chief executives are the chief security officers of their areas, but they lack the resources to do anything.”
He regretted that state governors were frustrating the autonomy of local governments because they were benefiting from security votes.
He said: “Governors are the chief security officers of their states; local government chairmen should also be chief security men of their areas, but that is not the case. Governors keep playing politics with security issues.
“We have very unfortunate situations where governors, instead of confronting security issues in their states, usually prefer to blame opposition parties.
“State governors prefer to play to the gallery; they hardly report the true security situation in their states to the President. If we continued this way, things will only get worse.”
He appealed to the President to seek more ways of ascertaining the true security situation in states, saying that governors had proved rather unreliable over time.
The APGA chairman decried the incessant killings in Nasarawa State, and expressed readiness to work with Governor Tanko Al-Makura to curtail the carnage.
He also appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to deploy more military personnel to rural communities in Awe, Doma, Obi and Keana Local Government Areas, saying that horror-stricken villagers had fled more than 100 rural communities there.
Saidu, who is eyeing the Nasarawa South Senatorial seat, promised to work toward ending the killings if elected.
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