Nigerians have raised concerns over the rising state of insecurity in the nation barely two weeks into the new year 2024, as kidnappers (bandits, gunmen, and assailants) punctured the security architecture.
People expressed their displeasure with the security architecture that President Bola Tinubu, DG DSS Yusuf Bichi, FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, and other security stakeholders had implemented.
“On matters of security, the buck stops at the president’s table. Like in other countries, Jonathan is the Chief Security Officer. Stop Boko Haram, President Bola Tinubu posted on his X (formerly Twitter) page in reaction to the alarming state of insecurity on April 14, 2014, during the former president’s Goodluck Jonathan administration.
Chronicle NG reported that slain Najeebah and her five sisters were recent victims of kidnappers in Abuja on January 9, alongside their father.
Our correspondents report on how Nigerians questioned and reacted to the insecurity trend on Sunday.
Michael Taiwo disclosed that, “First they asked for 60 million naira; now it’s 65 million.” They probably know we are raising funds and will be monitoring social media, so who knows what the next figure will be? They are kidnappers, so we can assume they have no honour or morality, so they can’t be trusted.
But what do we do? A family has been kidnapped, and one has been killed already.
If they get this 65 million, they will wait a few days, maybe a few weeks, and do it for another family. It’s a lucrative business for these criminals.
What’s more? Other people may be tempted to take up kidnapping as a business, seeing that the government is too weak to prevent it and seeing an opportunity to make tens of millions.
I have no answers other than to hope that they get caught and the rest of the family gets released. I pray that whatever the security agencies are planning works. I’d hate for any money to get into the hands of the perpetrators because, like I said above, while it may ensure the release of this one family, it sets the stage for many more families to be kidnapped for money in the future.
I’m happy to hear other people’s thoughts or solutions to this nasty plague.”
Abdul-Aziz Abubakar, Member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and DG Abubakar Atiku Media said, “They appointed incompetent northerners as the heads of security agencies; you cry out the insecurity consuming your region; their online warriors will tell you that the NSA, Defence Ministers, and DG DSS are all from your region.”
“You criticise the president for not securing your lives and property; their Twitter warriors will say that you have no moral ground to blame the president because the head of the past administration came from your region and he has failed woefully.”
“So what are we going to do? to keep mute while insecurity is about to finish us one by one?
“Buhari’s failure isn’t an excuse for Tinubu to fail. Elections are over; it’s now time for governance. We’re expecting the president to learn from Buhari’s mistakes and avoid being a failure like Buhari.”
Kelvin Odanz reacted to Tinubu’s post in April 2014 by saying, “On matters of security, the buck stops at the president’s table. Like in other countries, Tinubu is the Chief Security Officer. Stop Boko Haram, stop ISWAP, stop kidnappers, stop bandits, stop ethnic genocide militias.”.
“Nigeria is a joke country, Wallai [sic]. These bandits and kidnappers have TikTok accounts and are yet to be traced. How can we think governments can do something for our lives, to be honest? We’re not tired of this issue, Wallai, even if we’re arrested. Retweet for the sake of Allah,” Happy Ustaaz said.
Uloma wrote, “We are literally negotiating with terrorists. In public. They are right here, tweeting among us, taking notes, and planning for their next victim. Look how low we have fallen. Crowdfunding for our freedom.
And we have a government that parties while we sleep with one eye open.”.
Chibuzor Iwobi, who aligned with Uloma, said, “A friend was kidnapped years ago, and she said every time we tweeted about the case, we made things worse because the kidnappers were literally on the time line reading the tweets.
