Insecurity: Bode George urges Tinubu to meet Gowon, Obasanjo, Babangida, Danjuma, others; deploy technology

Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to urgently put machinery in motion to tackle the insecurity plaguing the country.

Speaking in Lagos on Wednesday, George, the Atona Oodua of Yorubaland, advised Tinubu to deploy modern technology to deal with banditry, kidnappings and other vices.

He also suggested a meeting with retired military officers to gain from their experiences on how to tackle the menace.
Some of them include Generals Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Theophilus Danjuma, Mohammed Gusau and others.

He said: “The insecurity in the land is no longer a party affair. It is no longer a Tinubu problem. From the North to South, East to West, nobody is safe again.

“This is the time for Tinubu to urgently meet retired military chiefs. He needs their help. This is also the time to deploy technology. All these characters kidnapping and killing people all over the place are not as powerful as the government.
“We have seen how technology is being used to deal with enemies of state in other countries. We must use same here to deal with enemies of Nigerians. Nigerians are no longer safe in their country. This is no longer acceptable.

“There is a need to deploy technology and train the military boys on how to handle modern equipment such as unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).
“The military is usually designed to take care of external enemies. But when the level of insurgency is beyond the police to contain, there is what we call ‘Aid to civil power’. It’s a special military operation to assist the police in quelling insurgency. The security challenge now is horrendous, and there is a need to use modern weapons such as drones. ‘Gramatology’ can no longer help. Let’s train our boys (military) in the use of modern equipment.”
George, who described the gruesome murder of two traditional rulers in Ekiti as ‘sacrilegious’, said “it is time to have a state police”.

He said the late governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, would be remembered for established Amotekun, adding that “we copied the American Constitution without following it to the letter”.

“Americans have the FBI, state police and the county police, but what do we have here?”
He, however, said that the Nigerian Constitution is part of the obstacle that is recklessly disturbing the growth of the country, adding that Tinubu should revisit the report of 2014 Constitutional Conference where all decisions taken were unanimous.
On the economy, George opined that “it is simple economics that when you have too much money chasing fewer goods, it leads to hyper inflation”.
He questioned the rationale behind the creation of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, adding that working without data is not the best for the country.
George also criticised former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as the first culprit.

He said it was unthinkable that a Professor of Law and Senior Advocate of Osinbajo’s repute will be going to the market to share money in the guise of trader money and market money.

The PDP chieftain, who admitted that the economic crisis in Nigeria is global, opined that subsidies on electricity and other essentials that will cut across all strata of the populace would cushion the effect of the downturn in the economy, “rather than sharing money without data”.