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Nabeeha Al-Kadriyar was living peacefully with her lovely family in Bwari, Abuja, enjoying her holidays. A dedicated 400-level student of Biological Science at Ahmadu Bello University, She must have dreamt of completing her studies in flying colours and looking forward to securing a good employment to take care of her father whom she obviously adores. A father that dedicated his life to bringing up such beautiful female children is simply adorable.
Unfortunately, she was to face the most gruesome agony of her life which made her witness the humiliation of kidnappers kidnapping her whole family from their house and obviously, torturing her father in her presence. She must have witnessed her father kneeling down and pleading with the kidnappers to be freed to be able to run around to look for the ransom to pay for the release of his family. The kidnappers must have gazed into the eyes of Nabeeha’s father to decipher that the father loved her most. They must also have seen through the eyes of Nabeeha that she adores her father. They immediately roared to the father with an ultimatum to kill his children on friday, 12th January, 2024, if he failed to meet the ultimatum for the payment of the ransom. The father agreed and was left to go.
Where would a father, who has all such lovely girls in school and has been paying their school fees bring out N60m to assuage the wrath of the kidnappers within the stipulated time. He came out and screamed for help. The government did nothing to assist the family, except to cite the law that it was illegal for citizens to pay ransom to kidnappers, until the deadline was breached. The kidnappers looked at the girls in captivity and decided that Nabeeha, being her father’s favourite, is the best scape goat to recover their ransom. They murdered her in cold blood and deposited her where the father will see her corpse, and indeed, her father saw her corpse and helplessly buried her favorite daughter on Saturday, 13th January, 2024.
A bewildered nation was stirred to pity and anger while their President was somewhere in Imo State celebrating prefilled results and couldn’t utter one condolence message to this traumatised family on the podium where he was ill advisedly extolling the virtues of his failed government. It is not quite unlike him because even when more than 200 persons were massacred in Plateau State on the eve of Christmas, this same President, neither visited Plateau State, nor even mentioned or commiserated with them in his new year message broadcast. Nabeeha’s death stirred the heart of Nigerians to contribute money collectively to save the remaining hostages. N60m was raised and given to the terrorists who hiked the price to N100m to release the entire hostages. They are still in the forests. The terrorists hiked the price because they believe that Nabeeha’s leaders will not do much to help them. If they are sure the government will hunt them down quickly, they will take the money given to them quickly and flee releasing the girls.
Nigerians have stayed in forests for more than 8 months when they were kidnapped from the train along Abuja-Kaduna railway line. None of the terrorists was ever arrested. All the hostages paid billions of naira before being released. Some Chibok girls are still in sambisa forest, more than 10 years after about 276, mostly Christian female students, aged from 16 to 18, were kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School at the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria, on the night of 14–15 April 2014. Leah Sharibu is still in captivity of terrorists for failing to renounce her christian belief since February 19, 2018, when the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP) attacked the Government Girls Science and Technical School in Dapchi, Yobe State, Nigeria, and abducted 110 girls. Most of these girls have been raped and defiled with unwanted babies everywhere.
So many agrarian communities cannot go to their farms because they are now paying royalties and taxes to terrorists and if they fail, they will be killed instantly. They know that they have an incompetent leadership that have failed to protect them for years. They are now paying the taxes to their tormentors and many of them have been killed for not meeting up with the payment. All our food baskets have become basket cases. The North Central states of Plateau, Niger, Taraba and Benue, hitherto regarded as our agricultural super states, are now theatres of war. Agriculture is the mainstay of our economy. If agriculture suffers, our economy suffers; hunger and underdevelopment will become inevitable. It is absurd that this government has spent more than N3.5b naira conducting foreign trips within 7 months purportedly seeking for foreign direct investment (FDI). Who will invest in an insecured environment? Nobody. Since APC came into government, more than 200 prominent companies have left Nigeria. Shell oil company is the latest company rumoured to be preparing to leave.
Insecurity is caused by many factors. I agree with Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), when he said “without security, we have no business in government”. The Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang, opined that the security agencies have been infiltrated by fifth columnists, rechoing what President Goodluck Jonathan said when he was in office that Boko Haram agents have infiltrated his cabinet. General Sani Abacha, former Head of State, made it clear that any insurgency that lasts more than 24 hours is done with the complicity of government. It is a known fact that most of the ammunition used by these outlaws, are given to them by some members of the security agencies.
From the foregoing, the first cause of insecurity is incompetence and complicity of the government in power. The primary purpose of government is the security and welfare of the people. The government has no excuse not to safeguard the people in Nigeria. Insecurity has become a flourishing business in Nigeria and the reason is because the syndicate perceive that there’s no consequence for engaging in the business. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) submitted to Nigeria some lists of sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria and till today nothing has been done about it. Sixty one terrorists held in Kuje prison were released from the prison with some casualties on the security operatives. Nobody is held responsible for it. No terrorists have been sentenced to death for their atrocities.
Meanwhile, the federal government is the only institution with the power to police the country, and has consistently refused to share this power with sub-regional governments. It cannot protect the people, it cannot liberalise the policing of the country. The solution to the incompetence of the government is the liberalisation of the police force. There’s no time all the three tiers of government can fail at the same time if they all have their own police forces. There’s no country in the world with the population and size of Nigeria that is operating only one police force. The legislature must urgently amend the Constitution to allow the States and local governments the opportunity to establish their own police.
The argument that the States and local governments will abuse the police appears very unintelligent. Is there any amount of abuse that Nigerians will receive from the state and local government police that will equal the abuse Nigerians are getting from the terrorists, kidnappers, bandits, insurgents, unknown gunmen, ritualists, killer herdsmen and so on. Unfortunately, any abuse by these non state actors attract no remedies while any abuse from government police of any level attracts remedies. What remedy does Nabeeha have from her murder by terrorists, what remedy accrues to Leah Sharibu from all the rapes and torture from her capturers, what restitution are we hoping to get for the Chibok girls if we will ever see them alive. The truth is none. Meanwhile, Emefiele, with all his baggage, just got a N100m damages to be paid to him by the government, for infringing on his fundamental rights. It’s about time we established police at all levels of government.
The underlining reason for all these security challenges is poverty and hunger. A hungry man is an angry man. The beastly manner these terrorists are operating show an internal disgust with their society and its leaders who are maltreating the poor and protecting the rich and powerful. The rich will appropriate money to build refineries, but squander the money and choose instead to import all the refined fuel. They allocate the fuel subsidy to themselves while inflating the quantity of fuel consumed so that the amount of illicit money will be high. They squander money given to them to build roads, and appropriate more money to buy suvs to ride on the bad roads. When they remove the fuel subsidy and tax the people heavily with the new price of fuel, they share the loot among themselves through establishing phony humanitarian ministry and agencies and consultancy service awards. The poor is taxed more in electricity tariff. Taxed more in transportation, etc.
Companies are folding up and unemployment is on the rise. Businesses are collapsing and youths are becoming hopeless. Naira has virtually collapsed. Inflation is growing to more than 28%. More than 133m persons are suffering multidimensional poverty. This is the root of crime and corruption is the cause of the poverty. Let the government reduce cost of governance, prevent corruption, cut wastes in government and build an honest and efficient civil service. Whoever that does not perform should be thrown out whether the person is a member of the security service or civil service. Corrupt officials should be prosecuted and sent to jail for deterrence. These measures will turn the fortunes of our country and return us to the path of development and economic recovery. In the absence of this, this country is heading towards a failed state.
