The lawmaker representing Ede-North/Ede-South/Egbedore/Ejigbo Federal Constituency of Osun State at the House of Representatives, Bamidele Salam, has said the Federal Government must apologise to the families of the abducted Abuja-Kaduna train passengers for not showing enough empathy to them.
The PUNCH had reported that terrorists attacked the Abuja-Kaduna train on March 28, killing eight and kidnapping several others.
Salam had on Wednesday walked barefooted from the Unity Fountain in the Maitama area of the Federal Capital Territory to the National Assembly to protest against the seeming inaction of the Federal government to rescue passengers abducted during the attack.
Meeting with the families on Thursday, Salam said the families had done what was expected of them.
He promised to engage with the leadership of the National Assembly so as to facilitate the release of those in captivity.
He said, “I think the first thing is for the leadership of this country to apologise to them. Apologise for the lack of enough empathy because from my interactions with them, they have taken steps, written letters to persons in government including the National Assembly.
“I will be surprised if that letter got to the Office of the Speaker because I know he will never ignore a letter of this magnitude.
“They have not received any response from the security operatives, National Assembly nor have they received a response from all the efforts or contacts that have been made since the incident occurred.
“In fact all the meetings or contacts that have happened since this incident occurred have been at their own instance which I don’t think is very good.”
Salam apologised on behalf of Nigeria’s leadership, assuring the victims’ families of a positive outcome.
Speaking on behalf of the families, Idayat Yusuf, said they had been traumatised since the incident happened, calling on the government to hasten up on whatever efforts they were making.
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