A group under the aegis of Area New Frontiers, has berated former Governor of Jigawa state, Sule Lamido for criticising 10 governors from Northwest and North central Nigeria regions for attending a symposium on security in the United States organised by United States Institute of Peace (USIP).
The governors that participated included: Abba Yusuf of Kano; Dikko Radda of Katsina, Dauda Lawal of Zamfara; Uba Sani of Kaduna; Mohammed Bago of Niger, Ahmad Aliyu of Sokoto; Mohammed Idris of Kebbi; Umar Namadi of Jigawa and Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State.
The symposium which was an invitation by the US body was aimed at addressing and logically dwell on peace and security in Northern Nigeria.
Reacting to the development, Lamido, in a Facebook post, said the trip exposed the governors’ ignorance of the country’s constitution.
However, addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Abuja, the National Coordinator of the group, Abubakar Lawal, said while the ex-Governor was entitled to his views, it was not the right time to condemn the move by the governors in their mission to salvage the escalating insecurity that has taken over their states over the years.
To this end, Lawal said Lamido should face his travails with the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and allow the governors to find solutions to their problems.
The group maintained that it believed the governors deserve more support for going to another country to seek and find lasting solutions to the alarming insecurity across the north and the daily killings and bloodbath overloading the regions for more than a decade now.
It said perhaps the visit by the governors could help solve this long security challenge that has ravaged the north and held its people under siege.
It stressed nobody can deny the fact that the United States has some of the best security measures across the world and has a long history of helping other nations tackle insecurity effectively with contribution in both intellectual strategies, and weapons acquisition.
It sated: “We believe there is no valuable time wasted in running a state as long as the assignment embarked upon has to do with securing one’s state from bandits and blood baths and other security challenges.
“And these governors we believe are also being careful with sitting down with the various security or professional institutions like NIPSS, ASCON and the NIA as recommended by Sule Lamido based on the current betrayal and sabotage and corruption rampant among the various security compositions in the country where confidential secrets are easily exposed by those working for the government to the enemies for peanuts and porridge.
“And these various recommended agencies have failed to find or bring out solutions to the insecurity challenges in the country for more than ten years despite their huge funding.”