President Buhari on Fridsy evening, June 11, had an exclusive interview with NTA where he quizzed on some very important national issues.
When asked to expatiate on his recent statement saying those attacking security personnel and institutions would be treated in the language they understand, President Buhari said
”What I mean…How can you go to police station, kill the policemen there, loot the armoury and burn the place. What do you want to achieve? To go and open the prison and allow criminals that have been tried through the legal system to set them loose on the society.
How can government sit and allow this confusion to be perpetrated? All they need is confusion and no government can allow confusion.
Look at the EndSARS incident in Lagos. The previous governor of Lagos state bought two hundred buses to compliment the transportaion in Lagos and he built a complex. They went and burnt them. The present governor made me an album and came to see me. I took the album, put it in my archives and I told him to tell the Lagosians to walk because we do not have the money. After an administration bought 200 buses, only for some people to come and burn it. I told him, let them walk.”
When asked if he means to deal with the criminals with the ”fire for fire approach”, the President said
”More than that. We will arrest them. What I hope is to arrest them, try them, give them very bad publicity and then jail them so that peple will know that if you misbehave, they will not get away with it.”
Reacting to claims that he is being soft on bandits and kidnappers terrorizing the North while planning to attack criminal elements in the South with an iron fist, the President said
”They are being unfair. They should go and ask the governors of Sokoto, Zamfara and Katsina and find out how we have deployed police and the military to deal with the bandits. We are not sparing anybody.”
The President mentioned that the poor state of security in the country will in the long term have an adverse effect on Nigeria’s Foreign Direct Investments. He said he hopes that he leaves a better security architecture across the country.
Watch a clip from the interview below
