Seek Foreign Help on Insecurity to Avoid Food Scarcity, Lawani Urges Buhari

George Okoh in Makurdi

Former Deputy Governor of Benue State and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Steven Lawani, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to look into the possibility of inviting foreign support to end the escalating insecurity the country is going through.

He said if solution to bandits and other crimes in the country could not be found in the country, then Buhari should waste no time in seeking foreign support just like the way Nigeria has helped other countries when they were in need of security assistance.

Lawani spoke to reporters yesterday at his home in Makurdi even as he said any further delay would be catastrophic in the area of food production and scarcity.

Besides, he stressed the propensity for the country to embrace ranching as the best form of animal husbandry to address the intractable rift between herdsmen and farmers across the country.
He said the level of insecurity in the country today had assumed a worrisome level, stressing that more needs to be done as the situation if not arrested would plunge the nation into endemic hunger and starvation.

“Today, we have the army and police controlling affairs if there is breakdown of law and order and the hoodlums take over the roads and they start shooting, they don’t ask whether you are APC, PDP, Yoruba, Hausa, Idoma or Tiv so it’s something we all are worried.

“I think more needs to be done. I have spoken about it before where I said if the insecurity situation in the country is not arrested, worse implication is yet to come.
“If people cannot go to their farms to farm, there is going to be starvation in time to come and that will lead to more trouble.

“So the implication of insecurity is enormous and therefore, government must do something quickly. If the Nigerian government cannot arrest the situation and requires help from outside, let them do it. “We (Nigeria) had in the past, aided countries who have had similar situations, if we are not capable of arresting the situation, let them also look for assistance outside.”
Chief Lawani who lamented the worsening ethno-religious and political differences in the country said all was not well in the nation and stressed the need for the federal government to listen to the cry of the people.