Stemming Terrorism: SNPM calls for massive recruitment into para-military, military formations
The Southern Nigeria People’s Mandate (SNPM), a socio-economic and political pressure group, has called for massive recruitment of youths into para-military and military formations to stem the tide of terrorism and criminality.
The Chairman of the group, Chief Augustine Chukwudum, made the call on Thursday in Enugu while speaking on the spate of kidnapping and banditry across the country.
Chukwudum noted that due to vast land area and fast growing population of the nation, it had become imperative to have large number of men and boots on ground.
According to him, criminality in the country is becoming an enterprise and highly coordinated and as such the nation needed to up its game of securing everywhere even its ungoverned spaces (forest spaces).
He said, “We are renewing our call to Federal Government to recruit a minimum of 500,000 youths into the Nigeria Police and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
“There should be close to similar number in recruitment in immigration, customs, Department of State Services (DSS),Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Air Force among others.
“The formations and personnel recruited should have ICT and technology devices to work with as well as state-of-the-art personal protective gadgets as well.”
Chukwudum also reminded President Bola Tinubu that during his electioneering; he did pledge to use technology and other hi-tech devices to tackle insecurity frontally.
He noted that it was regrettable that terrorists and criminal elements had taken over large portion of agrarian communities in the North; placing taxes on farmers, abducting and killing at will.
“SNPM as a group is tired of hearing stories; we demand that money budgeted for security agencies must be fully released, used transparently and be accounted for.
“Trillions of naira have been budgeted for the past years in fighting insurgency, terrorist and criminals but no measurable positive impact felt due to lack of proper accountability,” he said.
