 The Middle Belt Forum has challenged the federal government to yield to public demand and reveal the sponsors of Burkha Haram. The national president of the forum, Dr. Pogal Bitrus, expressed the concern, especially given by the reports of the United Nations, that the federal government secretly engaged in Soho, also known as negotiations with Burkha Haram terrorists, and allegedly offered them monetary awards. The Zamfara State Government is still in the news. This time armed bandits have overrun a military base in the state. Officials confirmed 12 fatalities comprising 9 Nigerian Air Force officers, 2 police officers and 1 Nigerian Army soldier. The attackers also seized weapons from the killed service members and set ablaze other equipment in the facility. To discuss this with us is Hassan Stan Lebel, he is a retired military officer. It's good to have you join us sir. Thanks so much, I appreciate it. It's unfortunate that we always have to meet and talk about these kinds of situations. The last time we were talking about the NDA that was being overrun and now a military facility and the story never seems to change. In the space of a few weeks we're here again discussing the same situation. This time, can we really just say the military, where is the government in all of this because I'm wondering to myself, we're trying to get the military to win this war, but on the side of our government what is the body language because these terrorists are also watching the news, these terrorists are watching our governments, they're seeing the body language of our government and they continue to hit every single day even though our military is doing everything in their power, we see that they're winning at some level, but we see and hear more of these attacks every other day. What does this leave us? Thank you very much, I appreciate being here again once more. As a matter of fact I know we've experienced this a lot once, twice and so on. I would only want to advise the military to remain focused. I know of late we have been able to experience some gains by virtue of our operations, generally in the North East and so on and that has been a big plus to the military, but I wouldn't want us to lose focus. Given our experience we have learned that these guys I would say have the capacity to be able to access our strongholds, our military bases and even strike. So having suffered that once, twice, twice I expect that we should be able to put in measures to ensure that we guard against such as a matter of fact. We have suffered casualties both in terms of human casualties and of course equipment and quality. All we need to do is to learn lessons out of it, learn lessons out of it and see how we can guard against further incursions like this. It could be embarrassing, it could be demoralizing to troops, it could be taking us on the path of the low side by way of psychological balance and so on. We must get out of it fast and that is why we are soldiers and keep doing what the nation expects of us. There is much work to be done. Of late we are experiencing some reasonable impact. I just want to believe that we shall have all the things to maintain the momentum and ensure that we are able to meet expectations of the Nigerian citizen. Now talking about the United Nations report on Suho and the fact that our government is in the know, I think I remember saying to you that the DSS also has said that they have the information as to who these people are but they are waiting for a nod from the government, that is the federal government, to go about the investigation or maybe to bring these people to justice. And now the Middle Belt Forum is asking that they name these people because many Nigerians are dying, we are losing a number of people, women, children, the list is endless. Why is the government so tight lipped about these people if we know these people? Why is it so difficult to name and shame them and bring them to justice? One of the reasons or one of the key things that this government wrote on to get into power was that they were going to fight terrorism to a standstill and I think I guess that's why they were voted massively in 2015 but here we are, there's information that even the international community has that there are people who are sponsors of this particular in security that we're facing and that even some of them are in our government and that even our government is complicit in negotiating with these people. Why are we still encouraging it and we're not bringing these people to book? My sister, I am equally at a loss the way you are, in fact as a person I am embarrassed by the lines of action taken by government or in the handling, in the manner in which the government is handling a lot of situations emanating from this fight against terrorism and banditry. I am at a loss. If security sit there out of the do I say the tripods or which this government came into power, I expect to see far greater lines of actions that would at every point reassure the citizen that even if we are not making some impact we have a government that cares. I really cannot understand what's happening. Frankly speaking the UAA authorities have given us a list of 400 persons who are operators are said to be sponsors behind Boko Haram. Till now we are still hesitant at bringing them to book, Jesus Christ. Is it that some individuals in government know what we don't know or what is really happening? What is really happening? The Italian authorities would interpret this sort of mess. They would try them immediately like they've done in the past and immediately waste those guys. Here we are treating them with keep draws. We are talking about honesty. We are talking about a research on into society. We are talking about possibility of bringing them into maybe the military or security for the armed forces. I have heard some of our actions frankly speaking. At times I ask myself if really we are serious about fighting terrorism and banditry in this country. We go to the suffering. I really cannot understand. And I guess I speak the minds of well over 80% of Nigerian citizens especially the ordinary Nigerians on the street. For Christ's sake government is just a minute. Just a minute. For Christ's sake government is into a social contract with really people to protect us. Section 13-2B of the Constitution of the Republic. And what is that for us? What is happening to that? What level of commitment do we see on the part of the government in meeting the leaders of Section 14-2B? Find the welfare aspect of the welfare component of that 14-2B cannot be met. That is welfare. That security is sacrosanct. That can be no excuse. So the situation where even government officials, be they cabinet members, be they governors or whatever are telling us to protect ourselves, get hands, some of us wonder are these people that have gone into a social contract with us? Are these people we are paying taxes to? To get what it takes to protect us? Telling me to go and look for whatever it takes to protect myself? When do I need to carry cutlass or AK-47? Which one? As you carry cutlass and face a man who takes AK-47 or carry bow and arrow and face a man who takes AK-47? So whether this leave the average Nigerian because I just had a conversation as to the outcome of the investigative panel on the NSAS situation. That is an issue on one hand and that is the resultant effect of a protest by Nigerians who were tired. Here we are again, a tiring situation where people, lives are being lost every day. It has gradually become numbers to us because every single day the papers keep churning out numbers of people who have been killed, people who have died, people who have been abducted. I asked a question today on my social media asking, why can't government try to spend the same monies and the energy and the time that the government is spending now to try to retrieve abductees from these terrorists? Why do we not spend that same money to make sure that these abductions don't even happen? Schools have resumed so students have to return to schools. That's another issue. You have to be able to ensure safety around schools. That's a whole kettle of fish on its own. And now if people decide that enough is enough, we want to go to the streets and protest. We will see the police come out in its full might. But yet we're not safe within the territories, within the borders of our own country. So it makes me once again ask, what exactly is the purpose of government if the government cannot do what it was elected to do? Because at this point, it seems like the government is not necessarily giving us what they promised. You have just asked the same question. I just finished. Do I have some comments about this? As a matter of fact, we have the capacity to move from here to Zikia, however, and pick up the IPOP fellow or leader of the IPOP and so on. And yet we don't have the capacity to pick up bandits in our backyard. It beats my imagination. It beats my imagination that even bandits, thank God we have taken some measures now against these bandits by virtue of the telecommunications thing, the restrictions of movement on certain roads, the closure of some markets, closure of certain schools that are far located and so on. But one thing still beats my imagination. Why is it that bandits find it very, very easy to access members of the community in the localities where they operate and be able to have informants among them? Very reliable informants. And yet our own security agencies find it very difficult to recruit informants from the same communities. Why? Who should have more access to the communities? We have friendly elements or friendly policies or they, the bandits, have friendly policies or elements. Who should have better access to them? Are we actually pumping in enough money into intelligence to recruit people who are to recruit informants? I hope we know that. We don't just go and recruit informants by tapping people on their back and telling them to departure and bring informants on. If that is the way we are seeing recruiting informants, I can assure you that the informants who run our past information to go around and make some money because they cannot go to farms now and everybody in this world is to finish on it and tell you the reality of what will happen. You must go out there and be ready to make sure they have the necessary incentive to be able to serve as informants. If that is not happening then we shall continue to be at the level where we are because frankly speaking the role intelligence should be played in the entire operation. I am not seeing it happening. There is a huge gap, there is a huge tendency in terms of information that should get crystallized into intelligence. We are seeing that and so I begin to answer questions what could be the problem, what could be happening because I know you are Nigerians. I know you are Nigerians so I am going to appear once more here. So when I talk I talk like a Nigerian. Okay. Well closing because we are out of time. Elections are around the corner. We are going to see our politicians back in the streets becoming more accessible and maybe seemingly attentive to what we are saying but are we going to see this insecurity issue go away because the question is we want to have elections but will we have elections in those places knowing what is happening and these things are gradually filtering down to the south whether we like it or not. So in closing if you can quickly just answer this. Do we see this going away anytime soon? Well it depends on the serious needs which our government attaches to. Government has got to really be more serious. Government has got to be really be more serious. We must see beyond whatever we think or do away with whatever we think could be blurring our sense of vision which does not allow us to interpret this question on ground appropriately and apply the appropriate measures. Government must work from its throne back. All right. The government is not reassuring the ordinary citizen on the street that it stands for him. Every day we are asking the government questions which are not answering. 400 sponsors whose names you are giving to us from UAE since in the first quarter of this year till now we have not tried them. We are treating what is it called a terrorist with cute girls. We are busy talking about amnesty this and that. We are not talking about the victims. Won't you attend to the victim source before you come and see your so-called amnesty to bandits? In the first place how come the bandits got to your custody? They wanted a fight. Why didn't you give them a fight on the ground where you met them? Who bled their fucking heads off? Okay. Now we have problems in our house because we are women means who you cannot eliminate now because the one who tell you they have drawn their arms. We have to go. The first way you met them is where you could have killed them. Okay. We have to go. We have to go. We have to go. We have to go. We have to go. We have to go. We really hope that we do not get to that. We sincerely hope that Nigeria will not get to that position. Hopefully our government will be awake to their responsibility but that's all the time we have. Hassan Stan Lebel is a retired military officer and we really appreciate your thoughts on this segment. Thank you. I do appreciate it. Well thank you all for staying with us. We will take a short break and when I come back I will give you my take. Now how do we want to progress as a country if everything is done to impede that progress? How do we say or express our displeasure to our government when we could get killed trying to do so? How do we get good governance if our so-called leaders refuse to be accountable or even listen to us? Instead they institute or try to, they think that we are trying to on-sit them. For example, we have no Twitter anymore because they think that Jack is collaborating with NSAS protesters to on-sit the Bahá'í administration. But when these politicians need our votes, they say all the right things. They wax lyrical. They show up to our streets. They even frighten Anakara and try to come down to our level or maybe that's what they think. They try to even be accessible to us. Then their phones come on. Then their constituency offices are open. They seem closer to us but we're no longer taking it. We're no longer buying that drama. We're no longer sitting here to hear stories. We want to action. We want to see results. If we see no results, then we're going to keep pushing. No more will we be played by our politicians. Nigerians deserve better and every Nigerian who's watching me today, you deserve better and you need to start acting like it. I am Mary Anacol. Thank you for watching.