By Chinenye Festus;-
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed during a New Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Thursday in Abuja, says the nation needs more weapons and platforms to win the insurgency war.
“To fight terrorists we need platforms and weapons,” he said.
“I want to use this opportunity to say that the international community can help us better than they are doing right now.
“When the international community is weighed by unsubstantiated arguments to deny the country of vital platforms and weapons to fight insecurity, you cannot turn round to accuse the country of not fighting terrorism,” he said.
“They should not forget that we are fighting a non-conventional war and at the same time, these people have contacts everywhere,” he said.
Mohammed said besides kinetic deployment, the government is equally using a non-kinetic approach to tackle insecurity like the economic and social intervention programmes meant to empower and engage the youths.
The minister said the impact of foreign countries in assisting the country is very imperative. He, therefore, asked the international community to support the Federal Government to tackle the numerous security challenges facing the country and pleaded with western powers not to deny the current administration support due to what he describes as unsubstantiated arguments.
The Minister regretted that the Federal Government is yet to receive some weapons despite paying for them for more than two years. He also maintained that “certain world powers have refused to even sell to us certain vital weapons.”
“They have not released to us and they even refused to give us spare parts.”
Although no name of any country was mentioned by the minister, he, however, appealed to some advanced nations saying, “They should please help Nigeria to provide us with these sensitive platforms so that we can fight insecurity more effectively.”