The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has vowed to hire foreign mercenaries to fight against terrorists following the Monday night’s attack on a Kaduna-bound train.
He also stated that four others of the seven Northwestern states—Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto—may join him to hire foreign mercenaries if the Federal Government does not end the ongoing spate of terror attacks in the region.
El-Rufai disclosed this to State House correspondents after he visited the President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, to update him on the happenings since the attack.
According to him, Monday night’s attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train, which left eight passengers dead and several others injured, would have been avoided if the federal government had heeded his earlier warnings.
The governor, who spoke in a brief interview conducted in the Hausa language, said he got the assurances of Buhari to end the ongoing attacks in a few months.
He warned that the attackers, who he identified as Boko Haram elements, could hold the entire nation to ransom if the military failed to, as a matter of urgency, storm their forest hideouts and clear them in simultaneous attacks.
On the identity of the assailants, El-Rufai said the train attack was not done by the terrorists known as bandits who have been roaming the Northwest for a few years now, but by Boko Haram members.
The former Federal Capital Territory minister also noted that the attack was not the bandits that they are used to.
El-Rufai also noted that if the military takes no proactive response, he would hire mercenaries to do the job.
He noted that the President has assured him that the attacks will be brought to an end within months.
Credit: Punch