"Defeated politicians sponsoring herdsmen as revenge" – Buratai

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai revealed that the army has strong evidence against politicians sponsoring bandits, kidnapping, herdsmen and other forms of criminality in the country.

Lt. Gen. Buratai made this known on Wednesday while receiving the Chairman House Committe on the Army after he paid a visit to Maimanlari cementary to honor fallen heros in Maiduguri on Wednessday.

He said:

”The myraid of security challenges we are facing right now in the northwest, north central and other parts of the country, I want to believe and rightly so that it is a fallout of the just concluded general election.

“There are political class intrests, politicians in particular who saw their defeats as a way of trying to revenge, sponsoring these criminal activities even the bandits, the farmers and herders.

“There are strong political undertones and strong political influnces including (in these) kidnappings.

“We use this opportunity to call on the chairman house committee on army to prevail on some of these politicains, to really look at national intrest first, before any political or sectional intrest.

“We have some strong evidence but we are still being conscious so that we don’t get it wrong but the best is to advice these politicians.

“The threat by boko haram is quite real, they have been dealt with but they are still much around. In terms of their various soft target attacks on some military locations, right now Boko haram terrorists are on the run but because of the resilient nature of terrorism they are always trying to score points to shows that they are much around.”