Nigeria’s ambassador to Germany blames ‘negative media’ for fuelling insecurity

Nigeria’s ambassador to Germany Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, has said that ‘negative media reports’ are to be blamed for rising insecurity in the West African country.

Tuggar made the claim in an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW) where he spoke on the state of Nigeria and the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Insecurity is most unfortunate, tragic it is not what we’re hoping for – govt is doing its best to bring this to an end,” ” Tuggar said while absolving the government of blame for the persistent abduction of school children in the northern part of Nigeria.

“It’s not been easy because of decades of maylays in Nigeria that this administration is looking to correct. And the negative media reports sometimes fuel these acts of violence, the kidnapping, the terrorism.

Over 300 school children have been abducted in Nigeria between February and May 2021, mostly in the northeast region due to activities of Boko Haram, bandits and other insurgency groups. The country has also been seeing sporadic fatal farmer-herder clashes while secessionist movements in the Southeast and Southwest present another headache to the government,

Although the Nigerian government claimed that it is winning the war against insurgency but thousands have been rendered homeless with hundreds killed.

Nigeria’s ambassador to Germany was confronted with these figures from the effect of insecurity in Nigeria.

Tuggar, however, says, it is “certainly not” the media’s fault but insists that “it has further fuelled violence as we have seen of recent.”

The Nigerian ambassador said Nigeria’s population of over 200 million people makes the country a likely environment for matters of insecurity to happen frequently due to underdevelopment.

He said the Buhari-led government is working to take Nigeria to the path of development and deal with “the root causes of insecurity and violence happen to be poverty, lack of effective governance.”

“You have to bear in mind that Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with a population of over 200 million people and certainly there will be acts of violence – especially when we have experienced years of underdevelopment which this administration is looking to reverse,” Tuggar said.

On criticisms about the government’s approach to tackling insecurity, Tugar said other arms of the government are engaged in the processes, noting that only Buhari should take the blames.

“Nigeria practises a democratic system of government that provides the separation of power,” Tuggar said, “-It is not every action that should be attributed to the President or the executive arm – it has several clogs in the democratic wheel.”

(The Guardian)