The member representing Ede North/Ede South/Egbedore/Ejigbo federal constituency of Osun State in the House of Representatives, Hon. Bamidele Salem has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently evolve measures to secure the kidnapped victims of recent Kaduna train attack who were still in captivity.
Bamidele who staged a lone barefooted walk from the popular unity fountain to the national assembly in Abuja on Wednesday said that it was worrisome that the Nigeria was becoming a jungle where criminals were having a free rein without resistance from the authorities.
Briefing Journalists, Salem said that the number of kidnapped victims had become alarmed.
He therefore called on Buhari to intensive his efforts to surmount the challenge.
He said: “As an individual I am worried by the turn of events in our dear nation. Our nation is becoming a jungle of sorts where criminals carve out turfs and operate freely without let or hindrance.
“One of the key dimensions of this criminality is the unholy practice of kidnapping for ransom, which according reports has spawned a billion naira industry in the last seven years or so.
It is to our embarrassment as a nation that our wives, mothers, fathers, husbands get routinely kidnapped at will by bandits with many of them losing their lives even after the payment of ransom by their families or communities.
“Statistics of kidnapping in the country chill the bones. A report by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) shows that from 2018 there has been a steady increase in the number of kidnap victims. The figure rose from 987 victims in 2018 to 1,395 in 2019. In 2021 the figure rose to 2,865 in 2020 and 5,287 in 2021. Of the 2021 figure, more than 2000 were children and young people according to a UN study.
“This year alone, several hundred Nigerians have been kidnapped the most harrowing being the attack on a train along the Abuja-Kaduna rail line in Kaduna State on March 28, this year where 168 people were reported kidnapped and eight persons killed including a young doctor due to travel out of the country the very week of the incident. The kidnapped victims of that attack remain in captivity till this moment. It is not clear how long they will be in captivity.
“We clearly cannot continue along this route. The kidnappings and deaths resulting therefrom are a stain on our national conscience. The Kaduna train kidnap incident itself is a blight not only the efficiency of our security system but a slap on the face of government whose responsibility it is to secure life and property. That such an attack could happen in broad daylight without our security operatives being capable of fending off the bandits, speaks to a defect in our security system.
“This defect reflects badly on government. No government can aspire to legitimacy and relevance if it fails the basic test of ensuring the safety and well-being of the people who elected it into office.
“We are at that point today when the Federal under the leader of President Muhammadu Buhari must rise to it full height and exercise leadership. It is trite to remark that the unfettered activities of bandits, terrorists and other criminals has created the impression in the minds of many Nigerians and even foreigners that the Nigerian state is tottering on the brink of collapse. This impression is re-enforced by the ease with which these criminal elements even take on security operatives. We recall that in August 2021, bandits attacked Nigeria’s elite military institution, the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) killing two officers and abducting another senior officer.
“That attack and many others elsewhere have belittled our security agencies and have caused Nigerians to lose faith in the ability of their government to protect their inalienable rights to life and property.
“President Buhari must rekindle that confidence and a good place to start would be to work assiduously to secure the release of the kidnapped Kaduna train victims. Reports and video footages emanating from their abductors are not encouraging. The lives of the hostages hang in the balance as the Federal Government seemingly at its wits end, prevaricates on such sensitive matter of national importance.
“What needs to be done to secure the release of the Kaduna train victims must be done now and today. Too many precious Nigerian lives have been wasted. If the situation continues the way it is, the average Nigeria citizens especially our youthful population who are looking up to us for solutions to the problems of this national will continually lose hope in this country.
“It is to void this that I have decided to join my voice to that of other well-meaning citizens of this great country to appeal to the President of this country to say please, in the name of the Almighty Allah, in the name of the God who created the heavens and the earth to rise and redouble his efforts to secure the release of these kidnapped citizens and other fellow citizens of this country who are in the bushes, in the forests and other unimaginable places at this hour whose hope is that they will have a country that will rise up for them.
“That’s why I decided this morning to stage a walk from the unity fountain to this place holding this placard, asking that the President should please, for the sake of Nigerians, posterity arise and do more to free the Kaduna kidnapped victims and other citizens who are in captivity in various parts of Nigeria”.
Bamidele recalled that the House of Representatives had in the last 3 years passed over 60 motions on security including amending other relevant laws to further empower the President and the security agencies to rise up to the occasion, saying there was hardly anything else the parliament could do.
He whoever ruled out the impeachment of the President over the issue, saying that the parliament needed not to create more problem for the country in attempting to solve one.
“I want us to remember that this same institution, the national assembly has moved and passed and over 60 motions on insecurity in various parts of the country in the last 3 years. I don’t speak for the House of Representatives but I can say as a member that this institution couldn’t have done anything than what it has done in the last 3 years including organizing a special security summit. No parliament does that anywhere in the world. It is not the duty of parliament. The parliament is to make laws and to hold the executive accountable to the implementation of those laws but this parliament had gone beyond even its constitutional mandate to invite security chiefs to organize security summit, to pass motions and to amend relevant laws that can cement the security architecture. The onus lies on the desk of the man who was elected as the Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the federal republic of Nigeria. We don’t have the power to control the police or direct the security services, we even have limited access to information on intelligence. The bulk stops on the desk of Mr. President and that’s why I decided to today to add my voice to those of other citizens of this country, asking him to please do the needful. He should go extra mile to secure the freedom of theses fellow citizens and history will not forget him.
“As a lawmaker and Nigerian elected to solve problems, I believe very strongly that it has not come to the stage of considering an impeachment of the president. Personally, that’s my opinion. I have been this country for the past 53 years of my life and I have a fair understanding of the political dynamics of the country and I don’t think we should create new problems to attempt to solve other problems. That’s my personal opinion. Like I said I don’t speak for the House and I don’t know if anybody is bringing any motion to that effect but that’s my own personal opinion”, he said.
Reminded that the Senate recently passed a bill criminalizing the payment of ransom to kidnappers, Salem who is also a lawyer picked holes with the piece of legislation, describing it as a misplaced attention, diversionary and escapist.
“The second issue is the bill passed by our sister Chamber criminalizing the payment of ransom. With due respect to that institution, I think it is a misplaced attention because if a citizen has a misfortune of having his son, daughter or wife or anyone kidnapped, he will do all that’s within his own capacity to get them freed and if government appears helpless, non-chalant, inefficient and ineffective, you cannot place the burden of the responsibility of ensuring that that thing is done on the citizens. With due respect to whoever brought that bill and to that institution, I think, that piece of institution is needless, diversionary, escapist. No one whose child is in captivity will have the means to secure the freedom and will not do it especially when you know that the government does not appear to have the capacity to secure their freedom”, he said.
Saluting the courage of some security agents, the lawmaker however called on the government to fish out and expose saboteurs amongst them. – Vanguard.
