With incessant killings and abductions of people ravaging all parts of the country, Nigerians are rightly united that if the unprecedented level of insecurity in the country persists, the consequences may be too grave for the government to handle. The country seems to have fallen under the control of gunmen whose activities are fast bringing it down.

The nation’s descent into a theatre of bloodshed is a reality that must be addressed holistically, because the causes are also multiple. They include sheer criminality on the part of non-Nigerians seeking a territorial enclave, sometimes acting in concert with Nigerians at the local level. To some extent, insecurity is also a consequence of the high-level of hardship the masses are passing through, following government economic policy to remove fuel subsidy; and the seeming perennial fall in the value of naira. People have protested in Osun and Niger states against the hardship in the land. It is a signal about how hopeless Nigerians have become.

For insecurity to be checked, the government must first take the battle to the criminals, wherever they may be hiding in the country. Attack, they say, is the best form of defence. Simultaneously, the government should practically and sincerely address the suffering in the land.  The incapacity and lack of political will of people in the corridors of power are becoming obvious and unacceptable.

Everyday, terrorists, kidnappers and other hardened criminals get more daring in their heinous activities, shooting at moving vehicles to abduct the passengers, planting Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) on major roads and ambushing and killing travellers freely.

Nigerians now live in constant fear of being killed the next minute. At the same time, citizens can no longer adequately feed themselves, provide shelter, and pay hospital bills and children’s school fees. Farmers cannot go to their farms, traders and others are afraid of travelling to do business or for social engagements. Nigerians are forced to part with their life savings and properties, and even borrow money to pay ransom demanded by terrorists and kidnappers who abduct people largely unchallenged in the country.

Regrettably, President Bola Tinubu was nowhere to be found amid these travails. He could afford to embark on a private visit to France, the purpose of which was not explained to the people. He was missing in the worst of times, and his action has been appropriately flayed as a flagrant display of insensitivity to the senseless and unprovoked killing of innocent citizens. The Federal Government led by Tinubu has a responsibility to prove to Nigerians and friends of Nigeria that it has not lost control of the country to terrorists and all other manner of criminals.

Terrorists, bandits and kidnappers are having a field day since what has been described as the Plateau genocide, which they perpetrated in the state beginning on the eve of the last Christmas. They also mercilessly killed people in other states, particularly in the northern parts of the country.

Recently, gunmen ambushed and killed two traditional rulers, the Elesun of Esun, Oba Babatunde Ogunsakin and Olumojo of Imojo, Oba Samuel Olatunji, in Ikole Local Government Area of Ekiti State while returning from a meeting. The Alara of Ara-Ekiti, Oba Adebayo Fatoba, who was the one driving the vehicle in which the three were travelling, managed to escape the attack.

At about the same time, an unspecified number of pupils of Apostolic Faith Nursery/Primary School in Emure Local Government of the same state were abducted while going to Eporo Ekiti in their school bus. Terrorists also struck at the Sabon-Lugbe axis along Airport Road and Karmo district of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, abducting four people in separate attacks and vanishing into the Kuje forest, Karmo Hills and bushes with their captives.

This incident happened 48 hours after five Almajirai and two suspected Boko Haram members died in an IED explosion suspected to be suicide attack and another explosion from IED planted by terrorists on the Pulka/Firgi road in Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State that killed seven farmers in a commercial vehicle and injured seven others.

Government stands to blame for its failure to secure the lives and welfare of the people, being the primary purpose of government as enshrined in the constitution. And it is to blame also for failing to provide critical infrastructure to support industry growth and SMEs for self-employment.

More than 60 years after independence, and despite the fortune expended on the power sector, Nigeria has embarrassingly failed to provide steady electricity supply, and our leaders seem to care less, apparently because they can afford generators and fuel. Companies in Nigeria are relocating elsewhere on account of dismal electricity supply. Millions of citizens whose means of livelihood depends on electricity have been rendered jobless, new companies or investments are not springing up, while those managing to survive can hardly barely break even. Hundreds of parents can no longer sponsor their children’s education.

To worsen matters, corruption in high places is thriving amidst the hardship.  It is clearly inauspicious for Tinubu to embark on a foreign private trip at such a critical time, and from all indications, at public expense.

For the country to get out of this dangerous state, the government must urgently address the plight of the people. While Nigerians have made a lot of sacrifice for the country to move forward, the leaders have not reciprocated and have failed woefully to show that they possess the character for the various offices they occupy. The stories of their insensitivity to the plight of the citizens, corruption, their style of governance and opulent lifestyle on public funding, replete with wastage and misapplication of national resources as well as their penchant for deceiving the people and not walking their talk, undermine, and in most cases, kill the spirit of patriotism in other Nigerians. They need to demonstrate that they are different from the criminals tormenting the country, given that both criminal activities and those of highly-placed public officials are inimical to peace and progress of the country.

Tinubu must know that military and police operations alone will not win the war against terrorism and other criminal activities that now make Nigeria teeter on the precipice of failure. The government must be responsible to secure the country and make life liveable for all Nigerians.