Brigadier General Mansur Dan-Ali (retd), the Minister of Defence, has appealed to Nigerians for understanding in the anti-terrorism war, pleading with them to give the military more time to completely stamp out insurgency in the north eastern part of the country.
Dan-Ali’s plea is coming on the heels of the killing of Col. Abu Ali, and six other soldiers during a shoot-out with the terror group, Boko Haram, in Borno State.
The development had renewed tremendous agitation and pressure by Nigerians on government to intensify efforts to rid the country of insurgency.
Answering questions from Statehouse correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting yesterday, the minister said Boko Haram had been degraded.
He said: “Give us additional time, recall that recently we lost one of our officers and soldiers. Insurgency is something that you cannot eradicate within a day.
‘’Remember Tamil Tigers, remember Kashmir and other places of the world where insurgency is ongoing.
“However, within the last one year, I can assure you that almost 95 percent of the security challenges of this nation had been eradicated.
“If you can remember, before the coming of this administration, we had a lot of security challenges. I am not saying that it has been eradicated within one year, but as I am talking to you, I am proud to say that things happening in the past in the north east and other regions of this country have tremendously gone down.”
