North West security crisis beyond only military solution—Shettima

Vice President Kashim Shettima has said that military offensives alone could not sustainably resolve the security crisis in the North-West.

Rather, he said it would take a mix of kinetic and non-kinetic strategies to restore calm in the troubled region.

“Unless we want to engage in an endless war of attrition, there cannot be a military solution to the crisis in the North-West. There has to be a kinetic and non-kinetic solution,” Shettima said in a chat with journalists when he paid condolence visits to the Galadanci and Mangal families in Kano and Katsina, respectively.

The State House Director of Information, Office of the Vice President, Olusola Abiola, revealed this in a statement he signed on Sunday titled: ‘President Tinubu’s solution to insecurity, poverty in northern Nigeria underway, says VP Shettima.’

The Vice President revealed that the Tinubu administration would, in the coming weeks, unveil an initiative to address insurgency and poverty, among other challenges confronting Nigerians, especially those living in the northern region.

“In the next couple of weeks, we will unveil the Pulaaku solution, which will address the grievances and social exclusion of our Fulbe cousins in the North-West and also towards addressing the root causes of all the banditry and insurgency in the nation,” Shettima explained.

Pulaaku also called the “Fulani code of conduct,” is an integral cultural and ethical value system specific to the Fulani.

Encompassing a broad range of norms, behaviours and social practices seen as distinctly Fulani, Pulaaku is a major factor binding Fulanis together across different regions, despite linguistic and regional variations.

On the plan to address challenges confronting Nigerians, the VP said, “The President is determined to define the meaning and concept of modern governance and the crisis we have in the North-West, which is further accentuated by poverty.”