Worsening insecurity: Inhumane gunmen need to be checkmated
Nigeria’s woes on insecurity heighten by the day as realities of the prevailing security conditions are driving towards the wall of frustration, many citizens living petrified.
Nigeria is confronted with an atypical wave of different but overlapping security challenges, almost every corner of the country has been hit by violence and crime. The scale of the insecurity threatens length and breadth of Nigerian society.
National security is a premise for national economic growth and development of nations. This is because peaceful nations attract foreign investors while the domestic investors freely operate the economy with little or no tensions and apprehensions.
The lamentation continues to resonate on the sorry state at which these resources are left dormant and unproductive. It has now become an albatross that every part of the Country is now discoloured with variants of insecurity threats.
Earlier this month, no fewer than 27 persons were reportedly killed by an unknown armed gang in a bloody attack on Adogo Ugbaam, Akpuuna and Diom communities in Ukum Local Government Area of Benue State.
The attack also left several persons with life-threatening injuries.
Last week, suspected gunmen kidnapped nine travellers in Oben, a border town between Edo and Delta states. It was gathered that the incident happened along Jesse-Oben Road on Friday night and had caused panic in the community.
A hunter, Mr Obehe Adika, who claimed to have witnessed the incident, said he heard gunshots and tyre-screeching sounds from the bush where he was hunting around 9pm.
He also claimed to have seen a Hilux van filled with gunmen, who attacked and kidnapped the passengers, who were in a Toyota Hiace bus heading to Delta State.
The clusters of deficient factors which security challenges have come to spark woeful threats wave unsavoury records for the Country.
But in the wake of these echoes of turbulence, Nigerians do not believe in living the Charles Dicken dream: “…don’t leave off hoping, or it’s of no use doing anything. Hope, hope to the last.”
Extra-judicial killings in the country, which all have denunciated, must end. Moral armour for all, especially those who lost their loved ones in a wave of wanton killings by non-state actors and even deranged police officers that swept through the country’s landscape last year.
The degeneration of insecurity in the Country is growing in concern with dynamic clamours, such as those demanding the possession of firearms for citizens for self help. Rising in full weight of response to arrest the heat is a demand the government must fulfill, as failure in same is failure to fulfill its mandate to protect lives and properties, a primary purpose for which it was elected.
Sustaining Nigeria’s democracy is paramount to keeping the polity running for development. Where insecurity has become an albatross threatening the process of elections, nothing speaks but the demand for an emergency which the government must live up to expectations to fulfill. The socio-economic impacts of insecurity have left Nigerians with unsavoury narratives, now that the political fabric is much exposed to the turbulence, it only behooves the government of the day to fortify its arm to arrest the situation as it grows worse.
The high level of insecurity in the country has defied all military solutions so far and made every administration the butt of jokes. For these reasons, the current administration must embrace new strategies to change the narrative.
The macabre theatres of these nefarious acts were earlier Zamfara, Kaduna, Sokoto, Rivers, Ogun states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. More kidnappings and massacres have occurred since then, underscored by the recent bloodletting in Mangu, Plateau State, which left about 24 people dead.
Meanwhile, these criminals also ambush travellers, to abduct or kill them. Ransom in millions of naira are demanded and paid by families of the victims, just as countless number of communities have been razed for being incapable of paying up levies imposed on them. The homeless are taking refuge in internally displaced persons’ camps scattered across the northern parts of the country. Intriguingly, children and the aged are also affected.
This callous act is now predominant in the North-western states of Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, and Niger. Plateau and Benue states in the North-Central and Taraba in the North-East also fall into this malevolent troop. In Yerima’s prognosis, the country can end the mayhem “if it comes up with a rehabilitation programme,” preceded by a successful negotiation with the bandits.
Following incessant security waves troubling the Country, the federal government has declared that the military combat is not sufficient to end terrorism in the North West.
New measures which will be announced in the coming weeks will be a blend of both kinetic and non kinetic approaches as his government considers military operations have become insufficient to tackle the hard headed problem.
Also, the leader of Ilana Oodua, Professor Bamji Akintoye has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the International community to stem the tide of kidnapping and killings in the South-western states.
Professor Akintoye had in a statement made available to the journalists decried the spate of kidnapping and killings in the region by a particular ethnic group in the past eight years.
He berated the immediate past administration for not proffering panacea to the killings that had made thousands of women widows and children orphans.
He, however, reposed confidence in the Tinubu-led administration, arguing that he would bring his wealth of experience to bear in his new assignment.
Professor Akintoye noted after the swearing in of Tinubu as President, the spate of killings continues unabated which is pointing to the fact this particular does not meant well for the Country.
