Arewa Youth Assembly, a coalition of northern groups, on Wednesday protested in Abuja, asking President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd.) over raging insecurity across the country.
The groups said the security challenges fester due to the inability of the NSA to advise President Buhari on appropriate measures of taming the scourge.
Buhari, in 2021 sacked the four service chiefs but spared Monguno, who was appointed in 2015.
In an interview with journalists at the National Assembly on Wednesday, the group’s spokesperson Aliyu Muhammed, said under Monguno’s watch, terrorists have been emboldened.
He said, “In response to the astronomic increase in the cases of unprovoked killings and abductions of Nigerians in their farms, houses, train and our major highways which has led to an unprecedented rise in the poverty rate and food scarcity across the country, we want the immediate removal of the National Security Adviser.
“In concordance with the similar situation in the southern part of the country where citizens are not allowed to come out on Mondays to pursue their businesses, thereby further impoverishing them. All this is because there is a severe defect in the security architecture of our country.
“The criminal elements became emboldened under his watch as the NSA, they equally ambushed and killed some officers of the Brigade of Guard to Mr President and also issued notice to kidnap our sitting President, Buhari and Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State. This is unfortunate and unimaginable in the history of nationhood.
“The NSA is either not advising the President or his ideas are ineffective, hence, the seeming triumph of ragtag elements over our Armed Forces. We, therefore, call for his immediate resignation or be sacked by Buhari.
“We want the security of this nation to unconditionally be improved from its present state to a satisfactory one, and all Nigerians in captivity should be fought for and set free, unconditionally.”
He said the group would mobilise and hold a massive protest across the 19 northern states if the president refused to sack the NSA by Friday.
