A former National
Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has
advocated dialogue with insurgents to end the spate of bombings in the
country.
Tukur, who spoke with journalists in Abuja on
Thursday, said he was bitter and sad over the Wednesday bombing in the
FCT, which led to the death of 21 people.
He said that insurgents must
be engaged in dialogue to save the lives of people, adding that all the
wars fought in the past usually ended up in dialogue.
“Dialogue is the answer. Let us make it faster to save the lives of
people. We need to strengthen the nation’s defence and I also urge
Nigerians to always expose the tendency of people that want to commit
atrocity,” Tukur said.
He appealed to the Federal Government to reach out to the neighbouring countries in order to address the problem of insurgency.
He said, “We are part of this nation, patriotism is very important, we
see what is going on and people are being killed mercilessly. We should
strengthen our defence. The securities are doing their own and we should
do our own because security is the responsibility of everybody.
“We should equip our army, police and all the security agencies. We
should dialogue with these people (insurgents). We should reach out to
our neighbouring countries. Let us strengthen our defence.
“We
must do all we can to ensure that our nation is safe. Wars that were
fought in the past ended up in dialogue. All the insurgencies one way or
the other must end up in dialogue.”
Tukur, who prayed that God
should touch the minds of the insurgents so as to stop their nefarious
activities, noted that journalists were facing challenges in this period
of insecurity.
He called for a one-minute silence in honour of
the late Managing Editor, Northern operation, New Telegraph newspaper,
Mr. Suleiman Bisala, who was killed in Abuja bomb blast on Wednesday.
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