by Lekan Olanrewaju

President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday said that the violent activities of the Boko Haram sect could be blamed on the tendency of Nigerians to “play politics” with most issues. Speaking in Seoul at an interactive session with the Nigerian community in South Korea, after attending an international nuclear summit, he also stated that Nigerians were not supportive of the government’s efforts in curbing the security threats, as opposed to countries like the United States where people supported the ruling parties during times of crisis.

“When a country is challenged, everybody comes together to fight back.” he said. “But in Nigeria, we play politics with everything. This is what we have seen and we will get over it. Everything is politicised; for example, when the Americans were attacked during 911, every American was together with the government of the day, yet they have political parties.”

“We Nigerians must also build a country that our children will be proud of. That is the essence of our transformational leadership.” he continued.

“We feel that certain things have to be done differently, though it is difficult in a country where they play politics with everything.”

He also stated that the government had been unprepared for the trend of suicide bombings. “We didn’t know that it (terrorism) was coming.” he said. “Now we are faced with the reality.”

He however assured that his administration was working hard to curb the violence, saying: “Our security architecture never expected suicide bombing and therefore was not prepared for it. But immediately we were confronted, we had to acquire the relevant technology and architecture and now we are working very hard. We are monitoring and the security agencies are working very hard.”

“In fact, most of you would not know as much as I do because not everything about our security activities is advertised.” he continued. “A number of people have been arrested that we cannot advertise. There are certain critical people that if you get, you will be able to extract information from them”.