Zabarmari Massacre: We’re thinking of ways to deal with these random attacks — Osinbajo

The Buhari administration will not relent but will do all it takes, including putting news ideas on the table in order to secure the country according to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Mr Osinbajo spoke in reaction to the mass murder of 43 farmers by Boko Haram in Zabarmari community in Borno State on Saturday.

The vice president visited Nasarawa State Tuesday and spoke to reporters on his arrival in Lafia after he was received by Governor Abdullahi Sule.

Below is the verbatim report of the vice president’s response to journalists, according to a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES by his spokesperson, Laolu Akande.

“As the president said, these group of people have acted insanely in such a dastardly manner, killing innocent people, people who had gone to their farms to work.

I spoke to the governor, Governor Babagana Zulum and the former governor, Senator Kashim Shettima to express my condolence, but more importantly, to try and think through ways of dealing with this kind of random attacks.

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It’s important to understand also that we will probably need to keep reviewing the conventional means of dealing with some of these issues, these security challenges, especially the randomness.

Which is why the president has said that he is taking a serious look at how to deal with the issues, especially the randomness: some insane person goes into a place and shoots people, that is not the sort of thing that you are prepared for conventionally.

We have to do a lot more local intelligence and some of the community policing efforts we are planning on, so that information is supplied faster, especially at the local level and then a reaction will then be possible.

It is a major tragedy; it’s a very unfortunate thing and our hearts are with the families of those who were killed in such a terrible manner.

We are very confident and the Federal Government will continue to do what it needs to do especially in terms of trying to ensure security in the Northeast and all over Nigeria.

You’ve heard the president and what he has to say, especially some of the new ideas around security and the security architecture which we are trying to put in place. We will get there.

Laolu Akande
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity
Office of the Vice President
1st December, 2020