Terrorists destroying power, telecoms facilities in Borno weaponising attacks to inflict hardship – Minister

Sept. 23, 2021

The minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed says terrorists who are destroying power and telecommunication facilities in Borno have chosen to weaponise attacks in order to inflict the maximum hardship on the people and also slow down the advances of troops in decimating them.

The Minister who was speaking at the town hall meeting on vandalisation of power and telecoms infrastructure in Borno on Thursday, noted that, “we could not have chosen a better venue than Maiduguri, which has been cut off from public power supply since January 2021 due to the destruction of power infrastructure by terrorists.

According to Mohammed the town hall meeting will achieve four objectives:
a. Create in the public mind that government property are indeed citizens’ property and so must be protected for the benefit of all.
b. Sensitize communities especially those where infrastructure are located to be conscious of the import of such and protect them
c. Expose, arrest and prosecute all those who engage in buying pilfered infrastructure items along with those who bring to them to sell and subject them to the full wrath of the law
d. Sensitize the larger citizenry to support the widespread campaign on the protection and ownership of public infrastructure/assets.

“I believe we have gone a long way in achieving our objectives, particularly in sensitizing both local communities and the larger citizenry to support the campaign on protecting and taking ownership
of public infrastructure”.

“This is particularly important because this Administration has placed a great premium on the building infrastructure, which is an engine of economic growth”, he added.

He however appealed to all Nigerians to please join the campaign on the ownership and protection of public infrastructure.