A policy analysis and pressure group, the Patriotic Nigeria Now, also known as Patriotic Nigeriana, on Friday demanded explanation from the Federal Government why it must wait for elections to approach before considering effective military actions on insurgency as a priority.
The group, in a statement, lamented the thousands of lives of innocent and promising Nigerians that have been wasted by insurgents who had had unchallenged reigns before the current raid by the Nigerian military.
The statement, signed by the Media Consultant to the organization, Idowu Quadri, demanded to know why it took the President Goodluck Jonathan government to be faced by electoral defeat before realizing the Boko Haram issue is one that could determine where electoral support would swing.
The statement said: “Though it is relieving to hear various stories of the successful raids by the Nigerian Army and the allied forces on the insurgents, but every patriotic Nigerian must interrogate this issue very well and demand to know what brought about the delay in taking the appropriate military actions.”
The group accused the Federal Government of abdicating its responsibilities towards the citizens by failing to confront the Boko Haram menace as timely as was necessary.
It added that Nigerians have confidence in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Police and other security agencies whose collaborations could have brought an end to the carnage.
It addedL “The United States Senator, John McCain, could not therefore have been wrong when he said that the US government needed not to have waited for a practically non-existent government to take action to help Nigeria in the wake of the painful abduction of over 200 school girls from Chibok village in Borno State.
“What we are witnessing at the moment bears some good semblance to a decisive action being taken only when the President realized that the wanton killings of Nigerians; destruction of their property; displacement of people from their abodes are strong reasons for Nigerians to reject him at the polls.
The group said the lives of Nigerians that have been sacrificed on the altar of the insurgency carnage is beyond what Nigerians could overlook, adding that only the Nigerian civil war that took place between 1967 and 1970 could be said to surpass the loss of lives that Nigeria has suffered.
Commending the Nigerian Army, the organization said men of the military, being patriotic Nigerians, had put in all they had despite what appears to be a criminal indolence and suspected conspiracy at the highest levels.
The statement said: “We must salute our men who have faced the odds; confronted the evil of Boko Haram in the face of unimpressive fighting equipment. They must be encouraged to regain their confidence that they are still one of the best in the world of warfare but were simply handicapped by a suffocating system that would only wake up when stared in the face by defeat.”
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