Boko Haram: Nigeria Needs Foreign Help, Says Atiku

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, News Monday, November 3rd, 2014

Ayodele Afolabi, Abuja

Disturbed by the unmitigated disaster the Terrorists have brought on the country, the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said Nigeria needs the world’s support.

Former Nigeria’s Vice President Atiku Abubakar

Atiku who address a world press conference on Monday in Abuja said “The world must not abandon Nigerians in our time of need”.

According to the former vice President, “this Boko Haram insurgency has been with us now for several years but has, in these last few days, taken a step further towards being a disaster of unimaginable proportions.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk. Nigeria needs the world’s support. The world must not abandon Nigerians in our time of need”.

Atiku who became very emotional said, “I am Nigerian. I believe in the integrity of Nigeria as a whole, and every part of this country matters to me. But I was born and bred in the northeast.

“So, please, excuse me if I should say a few words about the part of the country where I am from, about what the people from the northeast of Nigeria have had to suffer for far, far too long.

“Things should never have got to this stage. Thousands of Nigerians have had to flee their homes. Their houses and farms have been destroyed. They do not know where to go or how to restart their lives. That is the degree to which we have come in this country.

“I say this with reluctance and with shame. The situation in which we find ourselves today is grave. Much of Borno, and the north of Adamawa and Yobe states is already at the mercy of the terrorists.”

Continuing, he said, “As somebody who hails from Adamawa State, you can appreciate why I feel such emotion at the fate of my people”.

He lamented the seeming incapacitation of the country Armed Forces saying, “For whatever reason, our defence forces are unable to cope and unable to defend. My sympathies go out to the soldiers who find themselves in a situation not of their making.

” This is a crisis of leadership. We were told that the budget for security was going to be enlarged so that the security agencies and military would be in a better position to tackle the insurgency. How is it possible that a great nation like Nigeria should find itself in a situation where a handful of terrorists is able to invade a town as large as Mubi with a population of about 300,000?

“How were the insurgents able to so easily take a town of this size, and the people find themselves defenseless and undefended? How is it that the people have been made to suffer as they have?, Atiku asked.