Bishop of Anglican communion, Kaduna Diocese, Timothy Yahaya, has said it is a national shame for those managing the country’s security to declare some spaces ungoverned without finding solutions to the challenge.

This is as he advised that the military should be returned to the barracks as they have outlived their usefulness in tackling insecurity.

He stated this in his Christmas message, yesterday, calling for the establishment of state, local government and ward police to secure every inch of the country’s landscape of the people.

He, however, said there was hope that things would soon turn better for the country, adding that the nation is favoured by God to attain greatness among nations of the world.

“We have ungoverned spaces today, that is what security experts tell us. Is it not a shame that as a nation we have ungoverned spaces. Who supposed to govern these spaces. So, for me, whenever things happen and there are excuses here and there, I think those excuses are not tenable.

“There is the need to hold somebody responsible. If you are a commissioner of police in a particular state and somebody is kidnapped and killed, you must explain beyond reasonable doubt why such life was lost. The area commander should be called to order, the DPO should be called to order, the people at the post should be called to order. When nobody is responsible, the space will be ungovernable, but if somebody is held responsible for insecurity, I think we will have more security in our country.

“There is the need for the rejig of the security architecture. We are talking about policing of our nation, and we are just talking about a federal police. I hope there will be a state police, local government police and I propose that there should be a ward police, that every ward should have the police that the people in that ward feel should be able to protect them because police affairs is an affair that should be every where.”

Yahaya lauded the gallantry of the military in defending the country.

“I want to say a big thank you to those who have died gallantry trying to defend this country. Those who worked assiduously, tenaciously with every zeal and patriotism to ensure this nation is great. But if you look at some of the things we see, military officers betraying military officers, it is like some people within the system are beneficiaries of insecurity. A house divided against itself cannot stand. When you talk about insecurity, how many policemen do we have in the entire nation; the work the military is doing is the work of the police. I want to see the rejig of the Nigerian police and soldiers should go back to the barracks. These things that are happening, police can handle them, if we have a viable police, if we have a modern police, if we have the numbers of police that we should have on ground.”

The cleric, in his Christmas message, said Christ brought hope to the world.

“I want to assure Nigerians that this Christmas 2022 signals hope for this nation. Hope for better things, hope for turn around in our lives. We must not give up hope on our nation. There is still hope, we can be the greatest hope on planet earth.”

On next year’s elections, Yahaya said: “I want to say democracy is about canvassing for votes, I want to plead with the politicians to play the game by the rules. They have signed peace accord, but it is as if there is no integrity. If there is integrity, everybody should be given a level playing field. The attacks here and there, it means we have anti-democratic forces. But I want to say as Nigerians, we have resolved this nation is a democratic nation, that is the hope we have.” (Daily Sun: Text, excluding headline)

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