Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State has said he had a security report that members of the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP) conducted a wedding ceremony in Mandaradrau, town of Biu Local Government Areas, where they came with over 300 motorcycles.

He said though relative peace is gradually returning to the Northeast but the military needs to redouble their efforts by going after the members of ISWAP as they appear to be regrouping in the Southern and Northern parts of the state.

Zulum, who made the call when members of the Senate Committee on Army paid him a courtesy call at the Government House, Maiduguri yesterday said: “Peace is gradually returning to the state. We have to commend the military for that but one thing is that they need to do more in nipping in bud the increasing number of ISWAP members in Southern Borno and some parts of the North.

“I had a security report that ISWAP is mounting checkpoints and collecting taxes from people. They even recently had a wedding ceremony in Mandaradrau, where many of them came on over 300 motorcycles. Our military has to do something. Boko Haram members are surrendering en masse. As I am talking to you, we have over 24, 0000 surrendered Boko Haram members out of which 5,000 were active fighters. For sustainable peace to be attained, we have to put more efforts to nip in bud the increasing number of ISWAP, before they get out of hand. This group is more intelligent, more sophisticated and has more funding,” Zulum added.

The governor said: “I commend the military for their success but this will not stop us from pointing out where there are still problems. One issue with our military, once they record some successes, they relax. They have to wake up from their slumber and deal decisively with the ISWAP.”

He also called for increased capital expenditure to the military as the situation where recurrent expenditure is more than the capital will not mean well for the nation, and urged the National Assembly to do something and change the scenario. Earlier, the Chairman Senate Committee on Army, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume said they were in the state as part of oversight functions to see things for themselves.

While the Theatre Command Northeast Operation Hadin Kai, Major General Christopher Musa said: “We thank you for the visit, on our part, we will continue to do our best to ensure that the insurgency is brought to an end in Borno State and the Northeast in general.”

Speaking after a closed door meeting with the Theatre Commander and other principal officers of the Command, that lasted for over an hour, Senator Ali Ndume said their visit to the theatre is basically to see things for themselves and know their challenges, stressing that they deliberated on how to increase funding to the Army and Armed forces in general.

(New Telegraph)

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