The Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung, on Friday called for State of Emergency in his home state, Plateau State and other troubled states in the country.
This move, according to him, will check the persistent killing of innocent people in the affected states.
He spoke with State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The Minister also condemned the renewed killing of people in some local government areas of Plateau in the past few days.
He maintained that it has become a matter of necessity for President Muhammadu Buhari to impose state of emergency in Plateau, Benue, Zamfara and Taraba to stop the killings.
He faulted those blaming the federal government over the persistent crisis in Plateau State.
According to him, Plateau state and the local government authorities should be held responsible for the problem.
The ‘collapse’ of local government administration, he noted, had contributed immensely to the inability of the security personnel to arrest the problems.
He said “The Plateau crisis can be traced to many years of inaction by previous and current administrations in Plateau state despite the Federal Government’s efforts to address the problem.
“It is disheartening that Plateau state has been witnessing killings of innocent citizens in the last four to five days and this is very annoying and disturbing to the government and inhabitants of the state.
“I alerted the Federal Executive Council on Sept. 5 on the need to take drastic and emergency measures to tackle the crisis because the local and state governments have failed in their responsibility of offering useful information to security agents despite the huge resources being spent on security.
“It has therefore become imperative for the federal government to declare state of emergency in Plateau and other troubled states across the country so as to put a stop to the killings,’’ he said.
Warning that nobody should politicize the killing of innocent Nigerians, he said that the federal government was doing all it could to bring the perpetrators of the heinous crime to book.
The government, according to him, had already put in place measures to check cases of insecurity, stressing that Nigeria needed peace and stability for the country to progress and achieve meaningful development.
“But security personnel alone cannot achieve much in addressing the problem without the support and cooperation of the state and local governments as well as the local communities
“There is the need for collaboration between all the three tiers of government, the local communities and Youth Councils in order to find a lasting solution to the crisis.” he said
He identified lack of strong and dedicated leadership at both local and state levels as main factor responsible for the inability of the combined efforts of the security personnel to check the killings in Plateau, Benue, Taraba, Zamfara and other troubled states.
He also sought for the re-reintroduction of Crises Resolution Committee at the local government level.
The committee’s membership, he said, should be drawn from religious bodies, traditional institution, Cattle Breeders’ Association, farmers’ organisations, women and youth organisations.
On the chances of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winning the 2019 presidential election, Dalung said the party’s presidential candidate, Buhari, had no serious challenger from the opposition parties.
According to the minister, no Nigerian politician in recent history is as popular and admirable as President Buhari, saying that the president has millions of votes already guaranteed him by his ‘traditional and die-hard’ supporters come Feb. 2019.
He dismissed the insinuation that President Buhari was desperate for power, saying that the president was only interested in addressing the nation’s socio-economic challenges for the general good of the country.