The Minister of Defence, Christopher Musa, says terrorism has reduced drastically across Nigeria, giving the country’s security efforts a performance score of between 65 and 70 percent.
This was disclosed by him in an interview with Arise Television on Friday, where he said no nation is free from crime and criminality.
He said that though terrorism and kidnapping still occur, the situation has improved greatly compared to previous years.
Many of the security challenges, the defence minister attributed to the breakdown of family values and poor social orientation.
Many people who engage in kidnappings and other crimes are seeking ways of making easy money instead of hard work, Musa said.
He added that some of the criminal activities could be politically motivated and intended to make the government appear weak or give an impression that the country is ungovernable.
Musa said, “The armed forces and other security agencies are working round the clock to address insecurity across the country despite the challenges.”
He said: “Yes, I would give ourselves a mark of 65 to 70%. There is no country which is completely free of crime and criminality but the level of terrorism across the country has actually tremendously reduced.
“Now we have acts of terrorism, and terrorism, like I said, its a social vice, a failure of family values. We have seen fathers who kidnap children, children who kidnap children, brothers who kidnap sisters.
“It tells you there’s something wrong in the family and we have to also look inward to see how we can now develop those aspects again, like the issue of education. Work really hard, don’t look for shortcuts. People have to understand that to make money.
“Most of these people who are taking part in these kidnappings and all these things are looking for shortcuts.
And again, you can’t rule out politics, because most of these people they are kidnapping are people that don’t have anything to offer, and you’re asking for one billion naira, knowing that the individual you are kidnapping cannot offer, so what are you doing? Who are you waiting for to pay that money?
And that’s to tell you that there are some times you can look at it as acts of sabotage to make the government look weak, or to make the country look ungovernable, or whatever.
“But the armed forces and security forces are working 24/7 to address those issues. I can tell you, Nigerians working with us, and I want to appreciate Nigerians. “The level of support that we’re getting is a lot better than what we used to get in the past and we’re making more in-roads.
