Shettima said that the State of emergency is useless,

Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima

Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima said yesterday that the state of emergency declared in his state along with Yobe and Adamawa because of the Boko Haram insurgency is “useless”.

He is unbothered by the extension which President Goodluck Jonathan is requesting the support of the National Assembly for.

To him, the state of emergency which has been in place in the last one year has been largely ineffective in addressing the security challenges in the Northeast. The proposed extension has already been rejected by the Yobe and Adamawa state governments.

Speaking in an interview aired on the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) monitored in Kaduna, Shettima accused the military of being ineffective in carrying out their responsibility. He recalled that during the Boko Haram attack on Giwa Barracks in Maiduguri, it was the civilian JTF that confronted the terrorists and not soldiers.

The governor expressed regret over the worsening condition of life in his state which he described as bad. He said residents were wallowing in poverty because the insurgents had made it impossible for businesses to thrive and had rendered farming impossible.

He said: “This state of emergency is useless; these wicked people had a field day when they annexed Giwa Barracks; the civilian JTF confronted them; many of them died.”

The governor said he was willing to sacrifice his life, if need be, for peace to be restored in his state. He said rather than be afraid of an extension of the state of emergency, his major concern was to rescue the girls from Chibok.

He said: “This state of emergency is nonsense; our major concern is to find our Chibok girls alive,I can sacrifice my life for that, wallahi, wallahi (I swear by Allah).”

Shettima dismissed claims in some quarters that the state government was not cooperating with the military and wondered if the Civilian JTF members descended from heaven. He said at Nganzai, 34 civilian JTF men were killed and 50 were killed in Munguno.