ELDER statesman and former Minister of Petroleum and Steel Resources in the First Republic, Shettima Ali Monguno, has urged both the state and Federal Governments to reflect and collaborate on the insecurity situation in Borno State, with a view to proffering solutions to the serial attacks and killings by suspected Boko Haram members in the country.

Monguno spoke at the weekend at his old Government Reservation Area (GRA) residence in Maiduguri while briefing journalists on how to end the serial attacks and killings by the suspected Islamist sect, which had claimed over 1,475 lives and several property since July 2009.

Monguno said: “My first request is that we must return to God. Everyone of us should sit down and reflect on the situation we are in today. Every occurrence has a cause; although it might be farfetched to find the cause”.

The elder statesman counseled: “If it is bad governance, injustice and greed, the authorities should sit down, look at these things, reflect on them and come out with a permanent solution”.

He warned that the sooner this is done, the better, “because the state and its citizens are in a very tensed and serious insecurity situation where everyone’s lives and property are threatened on a daily basis”.

The Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai el-Kanemi, also called for prayers and proactive measures that would prevent the escalation of the insecurity problem in the state.

The monarch said: “As Borno State is going through a trying period, I am appealing to all the people of Borno and other parts of the country to pray for peace to come back.

“With regards to the ban on motorcycles, I am appealing to the state government to provide alternative ways to ease difficulties that our people would face”.

Monguno said the precarious situation in Maiduguri was worse than the experiences of the Civil War of the 1960s.

Meanwhile, last Thursday’s ban on motorcycles from plying the streets and roads of Maiduguri metropolis and Jere Council by the Borno State government has forced over 7,000 commercial motorcyclists out of business.

It is also making life harder for them as 85 per cent of them relied on their banned motorcycle operations to feed their families, pay their children’s school fees and house rents, according to Chairman, Motorcycles Transport Union of Nigeria (MTUN), Kaigama

Mohammed.

Mohammed said: “The motorcycle ban has affected many of our members. They have lost the income they earned from the motorcycle business”.

Mohammed stressed that most members of the union were poor and earned not more than N1,500 daily from the motorcycle business.

He said: “It is from this income commercial cyclists pay their children’s school fees and their house rent for the last 10 to 25 years.

“The governor summoned me to an emergency meeting at the Government House on this issue and he begged me to understand the position of the security taskforce to ban all motorcycles to save people’s lives and property in Borno. He said the security of the state and its citizens take precedence over the job losses and suffering of motorcycle operators and riders”.

Mohammed added: “And in accepting the ban, I had to brief all my executive members on the inevitability of going jobless for a week before tricycles are distributed to members of the union”.

He disclosed that the governor has promised to distribute 1,608 tricycles to the affected riders this week, adding that the committee on the sale and distribution of tricycles had travelled to Lagos to buy more tricycles for commercial motorcycles operators.

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