The Gravitas Group for Good Governance has described as bold the initiative by President Bola Tinubu to train and armed forest guards as a means to end banditry, kidnapping and all acts of domestic terrorism in the country.
The president had, in statement by one its spokesmen, Mr Sunday Dare, announced the plan to train and empower youths as forest guards, a move that drew responses from across the country.
For several years, especially in the last one and half decades, Nigerian forests has been hiding fortresses for all shades and categories of criminal elements who had been terrorising Nigerian citizens.
Paradoxically, most of these terrorists were imported into the country by many of the so-called leaders who swore to defend the populace.
The Gravitas Group stated in a press statement jointly signed by its Convener, High Chief Tola Adeniyi and General Secretary, Professor Anthony Kila, that Nigerians will now begin to trust and believe their leaders for living up to their basic responsibilities.
“This initiative of armed forest guards is, perhaps, the most important policy the Tinubu administration has taken since its inception especially on matters very close to the peoples heart.
“Nigerians in all regions of the country from the North, South, East and West have always believed that insecurity is the greatest challenge confronting the country.
“It is insecurity which drove our farmers out of their farms and investors and foreign companies out of the country.
“Insecurity singularly strangled the country’s food security and gave Nigeria its triple digit inflation in foodstuffs prices,” it stated.
The Gravitas Group also restated that bandits and barefaced terrorists have sent many people early to their graves, many to Internally Displaced Camps (IDPs), while the tribes of widows and orphans have grown into frightening proportions.
“Now that our forests are going to be actively policed and terrorists flushed out of their havens, Nigerians may begin to enjoy a new lease of life.
“Gravitas Group hopes that President Tinubu will treat Nigerians to more people-oriented public policies and live up to his reputation as a bold, thoughtful and strategic political tactician.
“There will no longer be hiding places for the wicked and heartless,” the group added in the statement made available to Newscoven.com on Saturday.
