October 22, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Nigerian Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies to ensure that no group or individual is allowed to stimulate anarchy and chaos in Anambra State.
According to the president, peace must be maintained in Anambra, even if it requires dominating the state ahead of the governorship election scheduled for November 6.
National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno, who disclosed these to newsmen after a security meeting presided by President Buhari at the State House on Thursday, said the President gave the charge because the implications of sabotage by non-state actors on the Anambra poll would set a dangerous precedence for future elections in the country.
Monguno said, “The President has directed that under no circumstances will anything be allowed to stop the elections from taking place successfully. The people have a right to vote and select their leader.
“No group or individual will be allowed to stimulate anarchy and chaos, leading to murderous activities.
“The President has made it very clear that the Armed Forces and all law enforcement agencies must make sure that the elections take place even if it means overwhelming the entire environment with the presence of security agencies.
“There are so many implications for elections to be sabotaged by non-state actors; in the first place, we are in a democracy, secondly it is important to note that if these non-state actors should succeed in destroying the potentials for orderly elections, then it is natural that other parts of the country would also want to copy this same situation.”
He further said that in the last two months, the military has recorded a lot of successes in the fight against insurgency in the North-East zone of the country which put pressure on the ISWAP and the Boko Haram Islamic terrorists.
“The fact again is that the armed forces, the land forces have done an excellent job because in the span of one month we have been able to take out the leadership of the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP) – that is Abu Musab Al-barnawi.
“Two days ago, the man who succeeded him, one Malam Bako, one of the prominent leaders of the Shura Council of the Islamic State of West African Province, was also taken out.
“They are also contending with leadership crisis. You know these things are also accompanied with inherent issues of trust, conflicts, mutual suspicion and other things.
“So, the operations being conducted by the armed forces in the Northern parts of the country put a lot of pressure on the Islamic State of West African Province, Boko Haram and also the tangential group known as Islamic State in the Greatest Sahara”, he said.
On his part, Minister of Police Affairs, Muhammad Dingyadi, said the security alert level in Anambra needed to be upped in a bid to ensure that people were not disenfranchised in the coming election.
He explained that escalating security within Anambra was done purposely to wither the operations of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and to engender a calm atmosphere and embolden the people to vote.
“In particular, we talked about the Anambra governorship election coming on 6th of November and we want to assure the people of Anambra State and all Nigerians that the government is committed to conducting that election.
“The election has to be free and fair, we are going to put every machinery in place to ensure that people are well secured. That is the only way to ensure that we promote democracy and good governance in this country”, he added.
The security briefing meeting was attended by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; and Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, among others.
The Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, led the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Farouk Yahaya; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Awwal Zubairu Gambo, and other security chiefs, including the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Oladayo Amao; Director-General of the Department of State Service (DSS), Yusuf Bichi; and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ahmed Rufai Abubakar.
Although the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, was absent at the meeting, he was represented by a Deputy Inspector General of Police, Sanusi Lemu.
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