The All Progressives Congress (APC) has been able to manage the security of the nation better than the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
This was the opinion of the former Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, in an interview on Roadmap 2019, a special political programme which aired on Monday on Channels Television.
He said this while appraising the performance of the Muhammadu Buhari administration in securing the nation, especially in the war against insurgency in the North East.
“President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has come; it has shown a lot of commitment towards fighting insurgents,” Akpabio said.
“At that time when we were in charge, the PDP, I can tell you that so many communities and local governments across the North East were under the control of Boko Haram. Their flags were flying everywhere, and they were moving around freely.”
The lawmaker stressed that the situation was so bad at that time that the terrorists had “a government-within-government” in Borno and some other affected states.
But he said the present government has managed to ensure that the insurgents no longer hold any territory in the state and other parts of the region.
Senator Akpabio was hopeful that other insecurity issues in the country, especially the crisis between herdsmen and farmers which has claimed many lives this year, can also be addressed.
He asked leaders in the country to take a cue from the United States and other developed nations, to put aside their political differences, and unite to tackle the problems in the national interest.
Akpabio said, “When a country is in crisis; when there is an emergency, all hands must be on deck. We are not learning from America and other places.
“If we have people from outside marauding over Nigeria, causing a lot of kidnappings and insurgencies and then you realise that not all of them are Nigerians, and these things are meant to destabilise the Federal Government, what should we do? As nationalists, we want Nigeria to survive – it doesn’t matter the political party.”