Reclaim territories captured by Boko Haram, ACF urges military

North’s Foremost socio-political organisation, the  Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), has told the military and the Federal Government to  urgently reclaim parts of the country captured by the Boko Haram sect.

It described the performance of the military and other security agencies “unimpressive”.

The ACF lamented that while reports have indicated that Boko Haram insurgents appeared to be on an unstoppable advance to over run more territories, efforts of the military to checkmate the advance of the insurgents was not yielding the desired result.

The group in a statement last night after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at its headquarters, said the well attended meeting chaired by Ibrahim Coomassie, discussed exhaustively the security challenges in the North especially the capture of some towns and villages by the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states.

A statement by the forum’s National Publicity Secretary, Muhammad Ibrahim, said:  “The meeting expressed deep concern about the rapid escalation of the security challenges in the North-East, particularly the capture of a large portion of the territories of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states by the Boko Haram insurgents despite the state of emergency and the heavy presence of the military.”

It queried “why our military now failing to quell such a rebellion by a band of insurgents?.

“ACF calls on the Federal Government to, as a matter of extreme urgency, investigate and unravel the actual reason for the failure of the military to live up to their past performance.

“ACF urges Federal Government to quickly take all necessary measures to reclaim the territories captured by the insurgents and restore the territorial integrity of Nigeria.” It said.