Security
Despite the views of some eminent Nigerians that the federal government is overwhelmed by rising insecurity in the country and the call for foreign assistance to defeat the bandits, Nigerians are expecting that the persons funding the bandits and insurgents should be arrested, especially now that the bandits are getting more sophisticated in their operations.
By Goddy Ikeh
THE recent attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train appears to have elicited widespread reactions to the deteriorating security situation in the country. Perhaps, the reason is that the attack was directed at some high profile personalities, who travel by train and the huge infrastructure, railway, that gulped billions of dollars to put in place.
Before the attack, there were obvious signs that the Abuja-Kaduna rail track was susceptible to bandits attack and the federal government did not take adequate measures to ensure the protection of passengers and track until that fateful day, despite earlier request by Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, for the government to provide the necessary security systems like the surveillance equipment and sensors for the effective monitoring of the rail tracks.
Unfortunately, one week after the attack on the train, the whereabouts of hundreds of passengers are still unknown, according to the Nigerian Railway Corporation, NRC. Eight persons were established to have been killed when gunmen detonated a bomb on the track and opened fire on the Kaduna bound train from Abuja. The statement issued on Sunday, April 3, 2022, by the NRC, said that of the 362 passengers on board the train when it was attacked, 186 had been confirmed safe.
“Of the 362 validated passengers on board the attacked AK9 train service on March 28, 186 persons on the manifest are confirmed to be safe and at their various homes,” it said, adding that the remaining 176 passengers, eight have been confirmed dead, leaving the whereabouts of 168 still unknown. It, however, assured that efforts were still made to rescue the missing passengers.
It will be recalled that gunmen had in October 2021 attacked the same railway line with explosives. And before the attack on March 28, it was also gathered that on March 26, 2022, gunmen killed a perimeter security guard in an attack at the Kaduna Airport. And in the usual official practice, after the attack on the railway track last year, federal government promised to improve security along the route.
But what is surprising to many Nigerians is how Kaduna state, which is housing not less than 15 military institutions and installations could be under siege by bandits and terrorists for years. Speaking to journalists after the train attack, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State said that the locations of the bandits were known to the military and that they had refused to flush them out by bombing their hideouts. The governor also said that recruiting foreign mercenaries to fight the bandits could be considered as an option.
Meanwhile, about 1,545 persons had been killed by terrorists within the first quarter of 2022, according to a joint report by the Community of Practice Against Mass Atrocities and the Joint Action Civil Society Committee under the aegis of Nigeria Mourns. The report of the group disclosed that at least 1,321 persons were abducted by the terrorists between January 1 and March 30, 2022.
Local media reports quoted the report as saying that the North-Western states of Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, Kebbi and North-Central state of Niger, have come under intense attacks by the terrorists. It was on record that these bandits had attacked the Nigerian Defence Academy in Kaduna, killing two officers and abducting one senior officer. There was also a report that terrorists, numbering about 200 invaded the Kaduna Airport on March 26, killing a Nigerian Airspace Management Agency staff member patrolling the runway. The report added that the exchange of gunshot between the criminals and soldiers at the airport also led to the delay in the takeoff of a scheduled aircraft.
Giving the breakdown of the attacks across the country, the group stated in the report that earlier in the year, some terrorists in Kebbi State killed more than 65 persons in a single attack, while in Southern Kaduna, within the three months under review, more than 100 deaths were recorded following repeated attacks on several communities in the area.
Other attacks in the report included the siege on communities in Niger State, the ‘takeover’ of the Suleja-Abuja Road by terrorists in the past month; the increase in cases of kidnapping in the past month; and the continued killings in the South-East, which claimed many lives.
These attacks by bandits have attracted several reactions from some eminent Nigerians, politicians, socio-cultural organisations and professional associations. And in his reaction, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, declared that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government has been overwhelmed by insecurity. “I believe that all right thinking Nigerians must know that we have a situation that has overwhelmed the present administration,” he said at his penthouse residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State on Saturday, April 2, 2022. Describing the attack as “a serious situation,” Obasanjo lamented that Nigerians are “no longer safe on the road, in the train and at the airport.”
Reacting to the worsening insecurity in the country and the attack on the train, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, berated President Muhammadu Buhari over the spate of insecurity in the country.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the party said that the train attack by terrorists was an indication that the lives of Nigerians under the All Progressives Congress-led federal government “is near worthless”.
The PDP noted that “the successful ambush of the train on the Abuja-Kaduna service by terrorists, who killed many Nigerians, abducted scores of others in an operation that lasted for over an hour, again confirms PDP’s stand that the security command and control coordination structure under President Buhari has collapsed.
“More alarming is the fact this particular attack took place within two days of the deadly terrorist attack on the Kaduna International Airport on Saturday, March 26, 2022 in the same Kaduna State controlled by an APC government.
“The PDP insists that the complicity of silence by the Buhari administration on the Saturday’s airport attack emboldened the terrorists to assault the train; a development, which also validates PDP’s position that the APC administration has conceded sovereignty over parts of our country to terrorists.”
It added that “the continued silence and obvious helplessness of the Buhari Presidency on these deadly attacks on our nation’s key transportation sectors raises apprehensions of possible complicity at the very top level of the APC administration.
“In 2021 over 10,366 Nigerians were killed by terrorists with over 2,900 abductions in countless terrorism related attacks in which no fewer than 964 security agents were killed, as revealed by SB Morgen (SBM) Intelligence Report published in the Guardian Newspaper of Thursday, January 3, 2022.
“Those killed in 2021 represents a scary 47% increase in the 7063 massacred by terrorists in 2020.
“More alarming is that the killing spree has continued in 2022 unabated. More than 536 Nigerians have been killed by terrorists since the beginning of this year. In the first three weeks of January 2022, about 486 Nigerians were killed by terrorists as reported in Premium Times of Sunday, January 23, 2022,” it added.
In its reaction, the Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, expressed concern over threat by Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, to invite foreign mercenaries to fight terrorism, describing it as an ominous sign for the country. The National Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere, Jare Ajayi, said in a statement that hiring the services of foreign mercenaries is certainly beyond the powers of any state governor.
“So, for him to assert that he (and a few of his colleagues) will resort to this option could be a pointer to certain things that had hitherto not been so clear to members of the public. Among those could be the possibility that perhaps armed foreigners are already in our midst. It could also be a pointer to the fact that el-Rufai saw some kind of unwillingness on the part of the federal government to confront this problem headlong, hence his desire to seek help his own way – even when the manner is constitutionally beyond his power,” the statement said.
For the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, it national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, rejected the idea of hiring foreign mercenaries. In his statement, Onwubiko was quoted by local media reports that the mercenaries could be used to prosecute the 2023 election, frustrate transfer of power to the South and continue the genocide against northern Christians.
On its part, the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, said that inviting foreign forces to fight the nation’s battle against the bandits should be treated with “utmost caution”.
In a statement by its Secretary General, Murtala Aliyu, the group called on the leadership of the political parties “to structure their manifestos to address our challenges and refocus our psyche towards peaceful growth and development of the country and not the current race for the sake of power or material gains.”
And the Kaduna State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), noted in a statement that “If any other Nigerian had made or muted such an idea of inviting mercenaries, such would have been accused or arrested by the government for undermining the security agencies and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
“CAN doubts if any section of the Nigerian Constitution allows any office holder, apart from the Commander-in-Chief, to invite a foreign combatant into the country.”
According to the group, it was a similar strategy that el-Rufai employed, years back, when he claimed to have compensated some herdsmen, which led to the escalation of the security situation, particularly in Kaduna State.”
“For CAN, the approach to give gunmen money, so that they would stop attacking the populace has backfired and Kaduna State is paying dearly for such a miscalculation,” the group said in a statement issued at the weekend,
And for the National President of Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, Quadri Olaleye, he lamented that no part of Nigeria is safe for anyone, and urged the President to resign if he lacks solution to the problem.
“Nobody is safe in the country again. Children can no longer go to school. You cannot travel again. And we cannot close our two eyes when sleeping. If the President cannot provide security for the citizens, then he should resign,” local media reports quoted Olaleye as saying. It will be recalled the TUC General Secretary, Musa Lawal Ozigi, was one the victims of the bandits’ attack on the Kaduna bound train.
In its reaction, the Accord Party, AP, described the train attack as barbaric and condemnable and challenged the security agencies to up their game in protecting lives and properties of Nigerians
The part said in a statement released by National Legal Adviser of the party, Maxwell Mgbudem, that the rising spate of killings across the country “calls for the security architecture to be restructured in line with modern day realities of effective protection of citizens:.
Reacting to the comments by former President Obasanjo, the minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, stated that the Nigerian government is not overwhelmed by the security challenges in the country.
Mohammed said that Obasanjo was wrong to have said that the government was overwhelmed by rising insecurity in the nation, adding that the Nigerian military had successfully flushed out terrorists from the North-East and the North-West would also be rid of criminal elements soon.
He said it was important not to politicise the security situation so as not to deflate the morale of the military. According to him, the federal government is not overwhelmed at all and “we are very proud of our military”.
“The string of successes recorded by the military against Boko Haram is what has led to the decimation of their camps and the surrender of thousands of rebels,” he said.
Mohammed disclosed that the government had trained at least 25,000 constables in police duties and intelligence gathering, which will improve crime fighting.
He said the government was boosting the morale of security personnel by providing military hardware including 150 trucks and 60 Armed Personnel Carriers in recent times.
“Also, 10,000 army personnel were recruited recently,” he said.
“People should understand that we are in an asymmetrical war and when such war is on, the other party doesn’t have to abide by the rules of engagement but we should stop dampening the morale of our soldiers. What the soldiers need is encouragement. What government needs is more collaboration especially at the state and local government level,” local media reports quoted the minister as saying.
However, a three-man panelists on Channels Television on Monday, April 4, admitted that foreign mercenaries could not be engaged by state governors since the constitution does not grant them such powers. But they warned of the ugly alliance between the bandits and the Islamic State’s West African Province, ISWAP, which is known for attacks on infrastructure. They, however, advised the government to initiate consultations with traditional rulers and clerics in the North West and other troubled states in northern Nigeria for the resolution of the security crisis in the country. According to them, this war is about agitation over neglect, maltreatment of a group of people, which the bandits are championing. For them, this war cannot be won through military force.
AI.
Apr. 05 2022 @ 11:26 GMT
Tags: Christian Association of Nigeria Lai Mohammed Maxwell Mgbudem Musa Lawal Ozigi Quadri Olaleye TUC
