National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, and 19 northern governors and service chiefs met in his office behind closed doors on Thursday to review the security situation and possibly proffer solutions.
The meeting, which lasted more than four hours, started at about 1:30pm and ended at about 6pm.
Terrorists had on March 7 abducted 287 students from the LEA Primary and Junior Secondary School, Kuriga in Chikun local government area of Kaduna State.
Also, 112 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Gamboru Ngala in Borno were also abducted by terrorists, while 15 students were also abducted in Sokoto State. Another 61 persons were also kidnapped in Kaduna on Wednesday.
The chairman, Northern Governors’ Forum, Governor Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State said the meeting was convened to discuss and review strategies towards tackling cases of insecurity in the region.
“So, it relates to security and you know security is very typical, especially that there was the recent issues of kidnapping in the Northwest and we are becoming so concerned that we need to discuss, review and possibly take alternative options to what we have been doing before so that we can have a better result,” he said.
He said the need for a collaborative approach to tackling insecurity in the region necessitated the meeting, stressing that non-kinetic and kinetic approaches are needed to address the remote causes of insecurity.
He said the security agencies had done their best but there was a need for a non-kinetic approach to address the root causes of the problem.
“In fact, that’s the best way to go because the issue is until we join the two and already the service chiefs and all other security agencies have been doing their best trying to cover.
“So, what we need to do is to change style, especially, adding the non-kinetic approach, so that at the end of it when we join the two, we’ll have a better security situation in the country,” he said.
