Fayemi: Fleeing Boko Haram members operating as kidnappers in south-west

Kayode Fayemi, governor of Ekiti state, says some fleeing Boko Haram insurgents have relocated to the south-west where they are now operating as kidnappers.

Speaking when he featured in a Channels TV programme on Sunday, Fayemi who chairs the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) said the insurgents are also operating as bandits in the north-west.

He said the Boko Haram insurgency which returned to the front burner following the killing of over 40 farmers in Borno, is not limited to the state.

Owing to the massacre, which received widespread condemnation, some Nigerians have called for the sack of the service chiefs while others are calling for a state of emergency.

But Fayemi said governors have not discussed the need for a state of emergency as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency.

“And that is not something that our colleagues who are at the receiving end of the insurgency have proposed to us. Governor Zulum (of Bonro state) or our north-east colleagues have not said anything about (a) state of emergency,” he said during the programme.

“Insurgency is not limited to Borno state. We will be making a mistake if we do not draw a correlation between what is going on in Borno state and what is happening in other parts of the country – banditry, kidnapping, militancy, they are inextricably intertwined.

“Some of the insurgents that escaped from the Boko Haram territory are the ones prosecuting the banditry in the north-west, some of them are involved in the kidnapping in the south-west.

”ISWAP (a faction of Boko Haram) insurgents coming down from Sudan, from Niger (Republic) are involved in what is going on. How many states are you going to declare (a) state of emergency on then? So, we must take a holistic view on this.”

He also said though the war against insurgency is being supported by a multinational joint task force,  the operation is not “as cohesive as it should”.

“We also believe that the entire framework of our internal security operation has to be reviewed. Some morale-boosting issues have to be brought to the fore as far as the leadership of the military is concerned,” he said.