(http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/thumbnail.php?file=Idriss_Deby_823945256.jpg&size=article_medium) President Idriss Deby Chad’s leader, President Idriss Deby, has called for the urgent creation of a regional force to tackle Boko Haram militants.
Deby said Boko Haram was posing a threat to Nigeria’s neighbours around Lake Chad.
He said: “Our basin is exposed to insecurity because of the permanent threat posed by Boko Haram.
“I am demanding the creation of a joint deterrence force. We have to make this decision here today,” President Deby told a meeting of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, which includes Chad, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and the Central African Republic.
“If we don’t eradicate them, we won’t be capable of saving our Lake Chad. ”
The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, has ordered his men to provide special protection to newspapers and broadcast houses after a suicide bombing and threats against journalists made by a radical Islamist sect.
Abubakar spoke on Tuesday night during an interactive session with reporters in Abuja.
He described the Boko Haram sect as a criminal organisation.
He said: "Boko Haram is a criminal group. We have arrested many of them and recovered arms and drums of explosives without making any noise about it
"Today the media will display these horrible photographs in newspapers and television and tomorrow they will be reporting that governors are bringing foreign investors into the country.
"How do you persuade foreign investors who have seen these photographs to come here and invest their hard earned funds under such circumstance."
Abubakar relived an encounter with a member of the sect who confessed that he was driven into terrorism because he had no job, no food and no place to stay whereas a few people have every good things of life which he has been denied access to.
He cited inadequate funding of the police as one of the major obstacles confronting effective policing in the country. This he said has been responsible for inadequate training, lack of equipment and poor response to security threats.
Abubakar disclosed that the quarterly budget of a police state command is just N2 million.
President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Muhammad Garba yesterday expressed concern over fresh threat by the Boko Haram to attack media houses.
Garba, who spoke with reporters in Gombe, described the threats as unhealthy and unfortunate.
The president said the group must recognise that journalists and media houses were only discharging their professional roles of reporting all issues and all sides of any disagreement.
The president appealed to groups, sects and individuals to support journalists to serve them better rather than threatening them.
“We are having very serious threats in Nigeria as it is. We are having lots of challenges coming not only from the threats of the Boko Haram.
“If you look at the working condition, the environment, we are going through a difficult moment.
“And such threats coming at this material time, I think it is unhealthy; because it will discourage us from performing our social responsibility as expected by the people.
“So what the media need at the present challenging period, is support from government, from organisations and individuals.
“It is only by giving us such support that we will be able to discharge our social responsibility as expected by the people, including the sect.”
TheNation