TINUBU: EDUCATION IS ANTIDOTE TO NATION’S INSECURITY, POVERTY, OTHER PROBLEMS
it causes have been exacerbated by routine kidnapping, as armed groups tighten their stranglehold on the country. Nigerian authorities must immediately stem the tide of kidnapping now.
“Many families choose not to report cases of kidnapping after paying ransom for fear of reprisals and as a result many incidents go undocumented. The current epidemic of kidnapping highlights the utter failure of the Nigerian authorities to effectively protect lives.”
Kingibe: Worsening Security Unacceptable
The Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ireti Kingibe, has deplored the worsening security situation in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
Kingibe, who was reacting to the killing of Nabiha Al-Kadriya, a 400 Level Biological Sciences student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, by kidnappers, said the rate and ease with which criminals abduct and kill innocent Nigerians in the federal capital was not only unacceptable to her as the representative of the people of the FCT but more importantly an embarrassment to the nation.
Nabiha, her father, Mr. Mansoor Al-Kadriya and her five sisters were kidnapped in Zuma town in Bwari, Abuja on January 2, 2024. Her father was freed by their captors to enable him raise the N60 million demanded by the kidnappers.
A few days later, Nabiha, the second daughter of Mr. Al-Kadriya, was murdered by her captors and the ransom demand increased to N100 million.
Kingibe, in a statement by her Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Nana Kazaure, said the murder of Nabiha and those of many others killed in similar and other situations, was a blight on the national conscience and a slap on the face of government, whose primary responsibility was to secure lives and properties.
According to Senator Kingibe, “The death of Nabiha and others who have died at the hands of kidnappers, bandits and other criminal elements, offends our most basic values of decency. It questions the raison d’ eter of government.
“At the very minimum, it is the duty of government to protect it’s citizens and ensure an atmosphere conducive for them to enjoy the fundamental freedoms guaranteed them by the Nigerian constitution.
“It is unfortunate to note that in this regard, FCT residents and indeed, millions of other Nigerians who live on perennial fear for their safety, are being denied these constitutionally guaranteed rights.”
CSJ: Govt May Have Abandoned Its Duty
Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), has lamented that the country’s security situation has degenerated to the extent that it could be stated that the government had abandoned, failed, refused or neglected to enforce its primary and constitutional duty of guaranteeing the security of Nigerians and residents in Nigeria
The Centre, in a statement by its
Lead Director, Eze Onyekpere, said it was regrettable that there was recent upsurge of insecurity exemplified by the late December 2023 killings in Plateau State, incessant killings in Katsina State, 45 passengers kidnapped as gunmen attacked transporters along Otukpo-Enugu Road and the ongoing kidnap and murder of innocent Nigerians in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
CSJ lamented that, “In all the foregoing, Nigerians are yet to hear concrete and reassuring words from the president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces or high-level officers of state on the way forward.
“In FCT, the minister in charge, instead of addressing the challenge seems more interested in continued fueling of a political crisis in his home state, Rivers State.”
It recalled that in the last ten years, security has enjoyed the highest allocation in federal budgets to cater for the armada of security agencies maintained at the tax payers expense.
“Budgetary allocations have been proposed and spent on personnel, arms and ammunition, aircrafts and vessels, vehicles, equipment including intelligence gadgets. We are worried at the seeming cluelessness and inability of the security agencies to deploy intelligence to prevent and nip in the bud the insensitive acts of criminal elements who have no regard for human lives.
“We are further worried that when these crimes have been committed, the security agencies have been unable to investigate, arrest and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
HURIWA: Tinubu Must Look Inwards on Upsurge of Insecurity
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the service chiefs to look inwards for solution to the resurgence of insurgency because the federal government has concealed the identities of key sponsors of terrorism.
The civil rights group said it had become necessary for Nigerians to protect themselves as heads of the military institutions have collectively accepted to live with the reality that they can't uproot internal moles and saboteurs, who are in the military forces but collaborating, conspiring and working actively with terrorism masterminds.
The group also appealed to President Bola Tinubu "to act fast and decisively before the kidnappers start going from house to house in Maitama, Asokoro, Garki and Wuse to pick and choose whomsoever they wish to kidnap or the kidnappers and terrorists may even introduce monthly freedom from and Kidnappers tax on residents of Abuja metropolis and families will comply since there is a collapse of political administration in Nigeria at the moment.
In a statement by the national coordinator of the group, Emmanuel Onwubiko, the group said, "The President is lackadaisical about the issues of insecurity and the frightening dimensions that terrorists have carved franchise and sophisticated and well-organised criminal networks of kidnappings and have infiltrated the Federal Capital Territory because the president, his cabinet members, legislators at the national Assembly are protected round the clock at public costs by Brigades of Guards.
"And because of the perceived invincibility of these political elites within the corridors of power, the security and wellbeing of everyone else known as commoners does not count as a priority subject of interest to Mr. President, hence the seeming overruling of Abuja by terrorists masquerading as kidnappers for ransom payments.
"Mr. President needs to feel the apprehensions, the pains and pangs and the unending anxieties of Nigerians and then do the needful because if this heightened state of insecurity continues, the political office holders will lose legitimacy and chaos and anarchy would be let loose and the entire country will be like a wasteland because everyone is looking for his or her own security because the government has lost the monopoly of organised, legitimised violence," the group lamented.