INSECURITY: El-Rufai Decries Imminent Food Crisis

Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State on Thursday said the current insecurity plaguing the nation is tantamount to an imminent food crisis.

El-Rufai charged the security agencies to step up their games in ensuring that the nation is delivered from insecurity that will eventually implode into food crises.

The Governor made this call during the 2021 quarterly meeting of the Directors of the State Commands of the Directorate of State Security (DSS) in the Northwest on Thursday in Kaduna.

According to El-Rufai, there are immense security challenges across the Northwest states, which have led to the devastation of the rural economy, displacement of farmers from their communities, loss of lives and properties, and travel challenges.

“Addressing this grave problem and restoring order requires that security managers and intelligence agencies constantly share information and experiences. These criminals operate across state lines.

“Therefore, tackling them requires cooperation and collaboration by the various states. Any plan that seeks to address the problem only in one state will at best yield a temporary respite as the criminals retreat to safe havens.

“This is an urgent priority, in the face of the looming food crisis that we face if our farmers do not go to the farms. The rains are here, but farmers in various communities are unable to go to their farms, that is when they are lucky not to have fled their remote villages under pressure and attacks from the criminals. This cannot be allowed to continue.

“The security agencies need to strengthen intelligence gathering, to establish not just the identities, plans, and locations of these criminals, but to actively disrupt their capacity to organise and mount attacks on our citizens.

“It is also very important to ensure that prompt and coordinated action becomes the default response of the Armed Forces and the Police to the profusion of actionable intelligence that is already available from the DSS,” he said.