Ihejika, on Friday warned that giving undue attention to frivolous and
baseless accusations could divert the attention of the country and her
security agencies from the challenge to eliminate the scourge of
terrorism in the country.
Ihejirika, who was reacting to claims by an Australia hostage
negotiator, Stephen Davies, that the insurgents mentioned him and a
former Governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sherrif, among the sponsors
of Boko Haram.
The former Army Chief made the comment while speaking at a meeting of
the Alumini Association of members of Regular Course 18 of the
Nigerian Defence Academy, at the National Defence College, Abuja.
Ihejirika said that the insurgents were making moves to exploit the
existing diversities in the country to achieve what they have not been
able to achieve through violence.
He said, "If this accusation was made in a country like US or UK, it
would not be discussed for one hour because they would wave it aside;
but they are exploiting our traditional fault lines, a
multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and young democracy, so
what they have tried to do is aimed at achieving what they could not
achieve.
"Well, why have I chosen to talk at length; I have chosen to do this
because we cannot allow national security to be toyed with; the need
for security awareness in spite of the effort I put in at a time and
the effort being put by the current leadership of the Armed Forces,
the need for security awareness still persist. I want to further
advise that baseless, unfounded and frivolous allegations like this
have the capacity of diverting our attention, away from the main
problem."
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