Nigeria Content Online

By
the time the Federal Executive Council came around, yesterday, to
discussing the collapsed state of security in southeastern states, many
Nigerians – especially those living in the region – had long lost faith
in the ability of their officials to protect them.

Every day, as new reports of yet more brigandage
being visited on the hapless people of the area trickle out, we are
amazed anew at the audacity of these criminals and the acquiescence of
our security forces in the face of it.

Life has become one long nightmare of living in
fear and coping with tragedy in some states and Abia appears to have
been hit particularly hard by this epidemic of kidnapping.

Recently, the account of a young medical doctor
who was able to negotiate his freedom from his captors was published on
several online platforms. His agonizing story of the cruelty of his
kidnappers and helplessness of the victims and their families brought
up the spectre of a failed society at the mercy of marauders.

Kidnapping, which started as a weapon of protest
by some activists in the Niger Delta to bring attention to the plight
of their people struggling in despoiled environment, has become a
veritable criminal enterprise in the southeast. Various gangs have
established holding pens where their captives are kept in dehumanising
conditions to get them and their relatives to agree to a quick and
costly release.

These gangs also roam across the state’s various
roads picking off people going about their business- often without
regard to their social status or ability to pay large amounts of money.
That this grim harvest of Nigerians has gone on for so long is an
indictment of our security agencies and political leaders.

The kidnappers appear able to navigate police
checkpoints – in fact, actually mount their own checkpoints according
to reports – and their various camps are sometimes located in places
known to villagers and community officials. Recently, the governor of
Abia State, Theodore Orji told a stunned crowd in Lagos that the state
government was in the know about the identities of the major kidnapping
kingpins in the state. He also said that one of the local government
areas in the state, Obinwa, is a haven of gunrunners and kidnappers.

This is a grave situation indeed, coming from the
mouth of a state chief executive. To whom are the citizens expected to
turn for help? How much further do these criminals have to go before
the government wakes up to its responsibility to protect the people?

What is the state governor and his administration
doing about the information they have on the criminals while the
scourge of kidnapping continues to expand across the state he governs?
How indeed can our security and political leaders look us in the face
if they cannot control a bunch of criminals trading in human flesh and
misery?

The rich pickings from kidnapping – have made the
perpetrators powerful and bold. It would be tragic if they were beyond
the scope of federal crime fighters.

Ultimately, the buck stops at the table of
President Goodluck Jonathan and Nigerians would hold him to account for
the continued misery of the lives of people in that unhappy axis of the
country. There is perhaps no greater danger to the security of the
country right now than this unbridled abduction of man, woman and child.

It is a good thing that the federal executive
council decided to discuss the issue. But that is hardly comforting for
talk is cheap. The president must convoke a meeting of the nation’s
security leaders and governors of states at the mercy of kidnappers –
ranging from Edo State in the west to Akwa Ibom in the east and the
states in between – to marshal a national response to this criminal
activity. Too many families are currently in sorrow because their
relatives are at the mercy of the kidnappers. We cannot allow this to
fester for even another week.