The Sultan of Sokoto and Co-Chairman of National Council of Traditional Rulers, Sa’ad Abubakar, has asked the military to occupy Sambisa Forest and Lake Chad region housing Boko Haram insurgents.

He lamented that insecurity is getting worse in the country.

Speaking on Monday, Sultan, who led other top monarchs to Maiduguri to condole with the government and people of Borno State on the recent killing of farmers by Boko Haram at a rice field in Zabarmari, said the military should occupy the Lake Chad region and the Sambisa forest.

Sultan Abubakar said they were in Maiduguri not only to commiserate with the governor but to make a strong statement with regards to the insecurity affecting the entire nation.

He said, “It is not just a condolence visit, it is a statement that all of us are fed up with the shedding of innocent blood under whatever guise across this country. So many lives have been lost in the past, we can’t even compute how many lives we have lost. It becomes like a daily occurrence, a daily event. A new normal, it becomes a story when in a day, nobody was killed in a particular place of this country.

“We had various fora with our political leaders, mentioned these things out, how to take care of our security in various communities. We have written papers, sent our governors, we have discussed with all our leaders, all the way forward.

“But we see things getting worse and worse. It used to be Boko Haram alone in Borno and Yobe, now, in all over the north in particular and generally all over the country. You have bandits and terrorists all over the north, you can’t even move freely. In the south, it is the same thing. The killings have taken new dimensions and we really don’t know what are the causes of these mass killings of innocent people.

“We decided to come together as the council of traditional rulers to make this statement to all and sundry, not only to the governor of Borno State, but to all our governors. Let’s rise up to the occasion and see how we can come together to fight this menace of shedding innocent people’s blood.”

Responding, the governor thanked the royal fathers for the special visit.

The governor decried the continuous dependence on donations to feed the internally displaced persons as the main source of livelihood.