A former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, says the country’s insecurity challenge started during the administration of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, shortly after the late Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, was overthrown.
Aondoakaa, who was among the screened governorship aspirants seeking to pick the ticket of the All Progressives Congress in Benue State at May 26 primary, disclosed this at the International Conference Centre in Abuja.
The former AGF said it would be unfair for anybody to tag Benue an insecure state, adding that the issue of insecurity was all over the country.
“The insecurity started during our time when I was in the office because of the collapse of the government in Libya. People moved with small weapons down to South Sahara, down to our region. And most of them, who were in the Libya Army, were blacks.
“After Gaddafi was overthrown, there was no strong government in Libya and there was a kind of persecution and most of the soldiers ran away with light weapons and came in.
“The insecurity is an external aggression that is spreading within the country but it is something that will go (away) after some years. We also had the great Wild Wild West in America that was so frightening that we thought America will break. But what happened? It evolved (and finished),” he said.
The APC governorship hopeful said he was upbeat that Benue would overcome its insecurity challenge.
According to him, there are many valid things to use for electioneering campaign other than to fly the kite of insecurity.
“You don’t talk security on the pages of newspapers and you also don’t shout security. It is something that governors should join hands with the Federal Government to find a solution to. It is a delicate issue.
“It is something that started during our time and we were not loud about it. We had cooperation from the governors that time. I was the Attorney General, we had issues and we were resolving them. I don’t know why others make news out of it.”
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