Experts kick over ‘inaction’ three weeks after Kaduna train bombing, abduction

Three weeks after the train bombing that claimed several lives and kidnapping of dozens along the Abuja-Kaduna corridor, stakeholders in the security sector have blasted government over its supposed lukewarm posture to the rescue of the abducted victims.

Recently, many Nigerians had knocked the President Muhammadu Buhari administration for building a rail system without adhering to international best practice by putting in place a top-notch security infrastructure.

Security expert, Frank Oshanugo, observed: “The fact that three weeks after the attack on the train and abducted passengers are yet to be rescued by security agencies is a clear evidence that Nigeria is a failed state.  It is only a failed country that would take the lives and security of its citizens for granted.

“The issue of security of lives of the citizenry as enshrined under the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy in the 1999 Constitution ought to be sacrosanct, as right to life is a non-negotiable fundamental right of every citizen except where the law states otherwise.

“It is shameful that the current leadership of the country has seriously abdicated its responsibility of securing the lives of citizens.  Such abdication to me does not stem from lack of expertise of the security agencies to rescue the kidnapped victims, but due to lack of political will to do the needful for the security agencies to deliver.

“By this, I mean that the government is covertly or overtly shielding sponsors of attacks and abductions. The same government has told Nigerians that terrorists and bandits’ sponsors have been identified.  Yet the same government would refuse to disclose their identities or prosecute them in an open court.  This attitude obviously demoralises the security agencies.”

To security analyst, Christopher Oji, Nigerians are worried that after the embarrassing bombing of the train where many people, including a medical practitioner, were killed and others abducted, the government had not yet made any meaningful progress to secure the release of the abducted.

National Coordinator, Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria (HURIWA), Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said: “The Nigerian Constitution of 1999 as amended in Section 14(2)(B) states that the primary duty of government is the protection of life and property of the citizens. Further up the same section, we are told that sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from where those holding public offices derive legitimacy to exercise authority.”

He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sack his National Security Adviser, Minister of Defence and the IGP due to what he called, “their collective incapacity or unwillingness to act with available intelligence to degrade, decapitate the operational capacity of these terrorists means that they know something that many of us don’t know, and they are not doing the duties for which they were being paid.”