President Goodluck Jonathan has said that he
believes the leader of the insurgent group,
Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, responsible
for thousands of deaths, will be apprehended
by government forces before Nigeria’s
elections starting March 28.
Mr. Jonathan disclosed this in an interview
with Thisday newspaper on Friday.
”God willing we will catch Shekau before the
elections,” Mr. Jonathan said in response to a
question on what his government is doing
about Mr. Shekau’s threat to disrupt the
elections.
Mr. Shekau, whose group has killed over
15,000 Nigerians, has remained elusive since
the sect launched its series of deadly attacks
in 2009.
In September 2014, claims by the Nigerian
military that Mr. Shekau had been killed
during a shoot-out turned out to be a hoax.
Efforts by the Nigerian government to improve
the capacity of the army through arms
procurement have been repeatedly frustrated
by foreign authorities as claims of human
rights abuses loom over the military.
But government forces have made significant
gains in the war against Boko Haram in the
last two weeks, reclaiming some areas seized
by the militants.
Mr. Jonathan admitted that the strength of
Nigeria’s military was not commensurate with
its position as Africa’s largest economy,
adding that his government is determined to
look inwards for arms procurement.
“Concerning the military strength being not at
par to that of Nigeria’s economic development,
there are some countries that don’t have
powerful military,” Mr. Jonathan said.
“I don’t think Switzerland has a very powerful
military. There are some countries that were
even doing away with their military until this
issue of terror, and now some of them are
reconsidering.
“What happened in Nigeria is that after the
civil war we had no reasons to buy
sophisticated weapons. Since after the civil
war, all what we have been doing is peace
keeping, apart from stabilising Liberia and
Sierra Leone, where our soldiers really fought
war to stabilise those countries.
“Back home, we were at peace with our
neighbours. It is now that we are witnessing
Boko Haram that we see that fighting them is
not what we do with AK 47, and now we have
to look for money. I totally agree with you, if
Brazil can manufacture commercial helicopter,
what stops us from going into manufacturing.”
The president further said that if re-elected,
his administration would focus on local
technologies for arms production.
“Recently, we wanted to buy tear-gas from a
country and they were bragging and saying
that Nigeria has human rights abuse issues. I
kept wondering what is tear-gas? I vowed that
God willing if I return, Nigeria must produce
tear-gas,” he said.
“What is the technology of producing tear-gas
for God’s sake? What is the technology of
producing APCs and armoured tanks? I agree
with you that in terms of manufacturing, we
must and we have no choice than to get into
it as a nation. That is why we are emphasising
about local content in production; that you
can witness in the automobile industry which
has come back.”
Mr. Jonathan also said that more companies
would be issued licenses to produce arms, to
complement the Defence Industries
Corporation of Nigeria, DICON.
“Just last week a company that bought over
the machine tools in Osogbo came to show the
bullet proof vest that they produced and I
asked them, can’t you produce weapons and
they claimed that they can manufacture
weapons if they could be patronised and there
is a guarantor,” said the president.
“Yes we have our own DICON, but DICON
alone cannot produce all our weaponry. We
must have more than two, three companies in
a big country like Nigeria.
“I told the company that immediately after the
elections, if I’ll be here for the next four
years, before they start going for weapons, all
the tear-gas that we’ll use in Nigeria, will
have to be produced in Nigeria.”
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