Labaran Maku, minister of information, has urged the governors of the 19 northern state governors to put measures in place to fight terrorism in their states. He made the remark while answering questions from State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting. He said Northern governors must do more than criticizing federal government’s decision to extend the current state of emergency in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno States.

Stressing that terrorism is a community war, Maku said state governors, especially the 19 Northern governors, should also ensure proper monitoring of all persons “within, coming in and going out of their states.” According to him, the federal government cannot win such communal wars by just sending troops to the states. He also maintained that the cooperation of all Nigerians is inevitable in order to win the war against terror in the country.

He said: “The war against terror is a Nigerian war, it is our cooperation that will defeat it.  It is our understanding that will isolate the evil. It is the unity of purpose in the country that will lead to victory over terrorism. We need greater unity to be able to break into what is going on and defeat it, and that is why the grandstanding and politicking that is associated with the fight against terror is increasing the tempo of the terrorists’ activities. The variety of opinion amongst the political class feeds into the confidence of terror groups because their objective is to divide public opinion and continuously penetrate the Nigerian society and destroy it.”

The information minister concluded that Nigerians will continue to plead that all Nigerians must think again to understand that the challenge the country faces is not to the advantage of anybody, “we need to understand that politics aside we need to save our country first.”