Insecurity: Governors should assume greater role

THE recent 21st meeting of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum held to discuss insecurity among other issues bore some semblance to serious governance, but largely lacked substance like other similar ones before it. For instance, their resolve to engage religious and traditional leaders, as well as civil society organisations to boost security in the country and their reliance on the federal police and the army amounts to banking on a failed strategy. The entire security system requires a total overhaul with the states assuming greater role in securing the lives and property of citizens.

The subsisting centralised security system has failed. Incontestably, criminal gangs are growing bolder, staining the cities and countryside with blood. In the past few weeks, a string of serious incidents has highlighted the broader trend of organised crime-related violence across the country. On November 14, gunmen kidnapped a lecturer and two children of another member of staff of the Nuhu Bamali Polytechnic, Zaria, from their homes located within the institution. The following day, eight students of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, among others, were kidnapped on the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway. Some bandits had earlier attacked Albasi village in Sabon Birnin in the Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State, killing 11 persons.

A day after bandits invaded another village, Maraban Kajuru. They killed one person and abducted two others. Bandits, terrorists, armed robbers and kidnappers strike randomly across the country. The Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar Sa’ad III, lamented that Nigerians had been abandoned by their leaders to the mercy of terrorists and bandits who prey on them at will. Depressingly, this is the stark reality of life for millions of Nigerians and their leaders have failed to show enough commitment, creativity, and political will to deal with the problem