This is even as he stated that grandstanding and altercations were creating grounds for terrorists operation adding that the governors needed to go back to the basis.
The minister was speaking while briefing journalists after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting which was Presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan.
According to him the Northern Governors must do more than just criticizing the federal government's decision to extend the current State of Emergency in the zone, by doing everything necessary to re- organize its social structure, including grass root mobilization and information gathering mechanism that will put an end to the destruction of innocent citizens.
"We need the kind of work that will enable every preacher every religious leader to speak to their followers to be able to sensitize people to give support to what is going on.
Every state in the North needs to go back to the basis. Which means that today to deal with terror every of the 19 Northern states must reorganise their people from the smallest unit of the smallest village to hamlet, to wards, to towns, to districts, there must be a proper organisation of communities for proper information about movement of people and activities that could lead to destruction of lives and property.
"The federal government is a fire fighter, it does not own any constituency in the 19 Northern states, the FG only sends soldiers and policemen when there is fire on the roof to put out that fire. But the real ground where terrorist is operating is at the local level, at the unit level, at the state level, and until we have every state government determined, not rhetorically but practically, to sit back and organise their people and to take proactive measures interms of information gathering, interms of preparing people to be able to report to confront to be able to report, to confront, to organise themselves we will not be able to defeat terror just because the FG has sent soldiers to a particular place, so we need a lot of the corporation" he said.
Stating that if the current state of terror will be defeated, every community in Northern Nigeria today must be prepared by the state government to attune their minds with their neighbours, with their communities, in their schools, in their town unions, in their tribal unions, in their religious organisations, Maku said "We need to be able to reorganise ourselves to prepare for the new challenges we face. We have not seen this preparation going on and we need it".
Maku who noted that terrorism was purely a psychological war which thrives on wrong ideology and not conventional, the Governors must use mass mobilization method to track down their movement and pass relevant information to security agencies for a more effective military operation
"It is not the weaknesses of the armed forces, it is the same way the Americans are getting frustrated in Afghanistan. If the terrorist they were to stand against the Nigerian armed forces, they will not last 30 minutes and will be completely destroyed" he said.
He further stated that the President had left the political structures in place to assist the security agencies in mobilizing people at the grass root to create the necessary support to defeat the terrorists, regretting that such synergy has not been witnessed despite the persistent attacks going on in their territory
He said " We have not seen this preparation going on and we need it. And that is why it is so sad that inspite of terror operating for this period of time there are still lapses like we saw in Chibok. It should never have occurred at all, there was no reason for it to occur, but we are now confronted with the ugly situation that has developed.
"If we are organizing our people, I believe we would have defeated terror by now. You need the cooperation of every little unit to expose these people who are terrorizing the people"
"The entire north must prepare its traditional rulers, each village heads, each religious leaders and the people to create the necessary synergy and mobilize the people against Boko Haram"
"We need to speak with one voice against terrorism. But the right political mobilization must be put in place and I think that this is what the media should support"
"When people tell you that because we have send troops we can win the war, it is not true. It is a war between a few ideologically programmed individuals. You need the right networking. We do not have to wait a long time if we do what we are supposed to do and without this cooperation, these people may continue to waste more blood" .
The minister also warned against sensationalizing Media reports on the activities of Boko Haram stating that "terrorists currently cherish such publicity more than the politician standing for election in 2015.
"If we destroy our armed forces, we do not have alternatives. These are the people being killed daily and they are doing a lot for this country. These are people whose children are being turned into orphans. This is a gorilla warfare and we believe that Nigerians can help to win it if we prepare ourself and organized our self to defeat terrorism by mobilizing our people to give information about the terrorists".
Maku condemned what he described as grand standing by politicians who are trying to score cheap political points by airing opinions that does not help the war against terror.
"We need greater unity to be able to break into what is going on and defeat it, and that is why the grandstanding and politicking that is associated with the fight against terror is increasing the tempo of the activities of terrorists.
" The variety of opinion amongst the political class feeds into the confidence of terror groups because their objective is to divide public opinion and continously penetrate the Nigerian society and destroy it. And so we continue to plead that all of us in the politics of this country we need to think again to understand that the challenge we face is not to the advantage of anybody, we need to understand that politics aside we need to save our country first.
"It is the Nigerian efforts that can bring this terror to an end. We need every religious leader to be able to speak to their people"
Maku had earlier noted that the Federal Executive Council took time to make a thorough assessment of the latest bomb attacks in Jos, Kano and in Borno state describing them as "senseless".
He disclosed that FEC has also thrown its weight behind efforts of President Jonathan including the setting up of a joint center for intelligence sharing between coalition of countries in West Africa and Central Africa
Maku said Council discussed the preparation for May 29 which is the third anniversary of President Jonathan's election as President of Nigeria and the 15 anniversary of the country's current democratic process"
He noted that the Programme will be used to highlight government achievements in the last 15 years, adding that May 29th will be used to showcase the achievements of the current administration under President Jonathan.
By the 3rd week of in the month of June, he said, government will unveil the next stage of the Ministerial platform.
He, however regretted that "but for the sad violence in parts of the North, this country would have seen the best managed economy in the history of this nation. One thing that evil will not succeed in doing is that it will not distract government from the development of this country. They may try to distract us but they will never succeed".
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