Nigeria can overcome her insecurity woes

Sir: More often than before, Nigeria has been trending on both local and international media over ceaseless kidnappings, banditry, robbery and other criminalities threatening the fabric of our social existence in the country.

It is no longer news that terrible and horrific things are happening day in day out in almost every part of the country. It is aching that such a mess is happening in a country that has government on which security of lives and property is shouldered.

People no longer travel in peace. The road, through which the poor and the average man travel, is now becoming a safe haven for criminals. Apart from ‘Accident’ the fear of being robbed or kidnapped is palpable; on Abuja-Kaduna road, Borno to Yobe and many other routes. This clearly symbolises that the slide to anarchy is inevitable, unless drastic measures are taken.

These kidnappers, bandits and killer herdsmen are the ever avenging and unforgiving cows in human clothing; they do not have human feelings at all as they ravage local communities, kill and destroy property. These kidnappers demand ransom after abduction. In the process, thousands of lives are being lost simply because their abductees or kidnapped families cannot afford the ransom bills.

It is shocking how these bandits invade schools and kidnap students, often breaking walls into peoples’ houses and kidnapping them in their sleep. Recently, we experienced school abductions in Kagara, Niger State, Kankara in Katsina State, Jangebe in Zamfara, where over 300 female students were abducted though later released! Now, over 100 students of the Bethel Baptist School in Kaduna are being held with the bandits asking for millions and food items to feed the students, according to them (bandits). Only in Nigeria!

The rate of insecurity in Nigeria is alarming, sad and unfortunate to the extent that a Second Class Emir in Kaduna State was kidnapped alongside 12 family members including women and children from his home in Kajuru Local Council of the state, in the early hours of Sunday, July 11, 2021. If an Emir can be kidnapped amidst security, who else is safe?

I call on government and all security agencies to rise up to its responsibility of protecting lives and property of its citizens. It is not enough for President Muhammadu Buhari to give series of orders to our troops to crush all bandits, considering the continued killings and attacks by these bandits and other criminals in Kaduna State, Zamfara State and other regions in the Northern part of Nigeria.

Our security forces on their part can do better!  Government should provide them with the necessary ammunition more sophisticated than those held by the bandits; so that they can confidently and gallantly go into the forests and ‘‘crush them.’’ The country is sinking but hope is not lost. Nigeria will be great again!

Mary Bawa wrote from Kubwa, Abuja.