IN a direct affront to the Nigerian state, bandits are running riot all over the Federal Capital Territory, kidnapping and slaughtering innocent victims. In a sharp deterioration of the security situation in Abuja, the bandits have abducted over 10 persons and killed three of them as of Friday. This lived reality betrays President Bola Tinubu’s promise to prioritise security. Therefore, Tinubu should stop his grandstanding, and fully take charge of Nigeria’s fragile security situation.
Most heinously, the bandits, after two separate kidnapping incidents at the Sagwari Estate Layout at Dutse in Bwari Area Council, slaughtered three of their victims for failure to pay ransom. Their corpses were dumped at Idah in the capital. One of the casualties was Nabeeha al-Kadriyar, a 400-level student of Biological Science, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
The felons had kidnapped Nabeeha’s father, Mansoor, and her five sisters. They released Mansoor to go and bring a ransom of N60 million. When he could not pay before the January 12 deadline, they murdered Nabeeha. This is most sinister, as they had the temerity to increase the ransom to N100 million.
When the outcry over Nabeeha rented the air, it came to light that the bandits had similarly murdered Folashade Ariyo, 13, the daughter of a government official. They abducted five members of the Ariyo family. After the killings, the murderers have jerked the ransom to N700 million.
This shows the Nigerian state is fast losing its grip on controlling non-state actors. There seems to be no difference between the incumbent and his predecessor. It is alarming that the FCT, where all the major security formations are well represented because of federal presence, is under perpetual siege.
Under Muhammadu Buhari (mid-2015-mid-2023), Nigeria lost 63,111 persons to violence per SBM Intelligence. In March 2022, bandits hijacked the Abuja-Kaduna train, killing 14 and abducting 63 passengers. About N6 billion in ransom was allegedly paid to the abductors by the victims’ families. In Tinubu’s first seven months, 5,060 have died violently, says Beacon Consulting. During the Christmas festivities, gunmen slaughtered nearly 200 persons in three LGAs in Plateau State.
In all this, the perpetrators go scot-free, which encourages criminality to thrive. The 2023 Global Terrorism Index stated that Nigeria is the eighth most terrorised country in the world with the Islamic State West Africa Province, Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen and other criminals wreaking havoc in several communities.
Tinubu, and the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, must take decisive steps to stop the widespread criminality under their noses in Abuja, and other parts of the country. In the current cases, they must prove their mettle and send a message to the criminals about the untrammelled powers of the state. They should deploy the full force of state security and hunt down the bandits who murdered Nabeeha, Folashade and their neighbour.
By now, a national emergency over the incident in the FCT should have been declared, as is the practice in other climes. Through technology and the use of the NIN-SIM card platform, the police should collaborate with the other security intelligence units to catch the bandits and prosecute them.
Unfortunately, the spell of insecurity might not wane soon because the police are shorthanded. The Nigeria Police is concerned about elite protection, deploying about a third of its officers for VIP protection duties. There are no state police to pick up the slack, as is the practice in other federal states like the United States, Germany, Australia, and Switzerland.
To arrest the drift, Tinubu should change the security architecture in favour of state police in collaboration with the National Assembly, the states, and their parliaments. Offenders should face punishment.
