NewzlSays terrorists still dictate pace of war lCalls for national security overhaul The presidential candidate of Accord party, Dr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has declared that Nigeria was at war being led without a coherent strategy to defeat terrorism and restore national security. In a statement, yesterday, Olawepo-Hashim condemned the latest wave of killings in Kaduna, Zamfara, Plateau and other states, as well as the abduction of innocent citizens in Kebbi State, including a High Court judge.
He called on the Federal Government to urgently overhaul the nation’s security architecture, reclaim the strategic initiative from terrorists and adopt a proactive doctrine that prevents attacks, rather than merely responding to them. “Everyday, terrorists retain the initiative while innocent Nigerians pay with their lives. The time has come to stop managing insecurity and start a real offensive aimed at winning the war,” Hashim said.
He added that the relentless attacks across the country demonstrated that terrorists and armed criminal groups continued to dictate the pace of the conflict, choosing when, where and how to strike . This is war, yet, the President Bola Tinubu administration has no strategy to end it. As long as terrorists determine the time, place and intensity of attacks, they, and not the government, retain the strategic initiative.
“Over 30,000 innocent people killed in the first three years of this administration, with over 3.7 million people living in IDPs’ camps not able to return home, the scale of this conflict qualifies for the textbook definition of war,” Hashim said. He described the persistent bloodshed as a national emergency that was eroding national unity, increasing poverty, threatening food security, discouraging investment and damaging Nigeria’s international reputation. “The first responsibility of any government is the protection of lives and property.
No nation can prosper while its citizens live in fear and entire communities remain at the mercy of terrorists and criminal gangs,’’ he said. Hashim argued that Nigeria’s security response had become “largely reactive,” insisting that the country urgently needed a comprehensive national security strategy built on intelligence superiority, a force motivated to be on the offensive against forces of terror everywhere in the country, precision military operations, eff… Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi on Sunday called for province-wide intelli-gence-based operations to curb terrorism, stressing that the growing security threat required close co-ordination between the federal and provincial governments to ensure lasting peace.
Speaking to journalists at the Regional Police Office (RPO) in Dera Ismail Khan, the governor said the fight against militancy was a shared national responsibility that could only be won through unity, effec-tive intelligence sharing and coordinated action. He said he would soon discuss the matter with the K-P chief minister to strengthen joint efforts against terrorism. Governor Kundi revealed that more than 1,300 kilograms of explosives had been used in the recent ter-rorist attack on the Manjhi Khel check post in Tank district, describing it as evidence of the extensive planning behind the assault.
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