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It is my considered view that there is an unsettling nexus between decadement moral values in the society and the recent sordid kidnap by dare devil Fulani armed terrorists, of 177 Christian worshippers in Southern Kaduna. People who are not integrity challenged or morally bankrupt hold this to be universally self- evident: The desire of parents is to impart good virtues in their children while still under their tutelage. When children imbibe good virtues from their homes the impact is positively felt in the society. Indeed, every good training starts from the home. You know a good child from the type of training he received from his/ her home.Even the holy books attest to this. For example, the Christian holy book, the Bible instructs in Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it”. Whenever there is an incident in the society, for example, a situation where a government official or a public servant embezzles public fund entrusted in his care, such an unwholesome act could be traceable to a wrong or faulty family value. It could be that as a child or while growing up, pilfering of money or edible items was common feature in his family. The moral decadence plaguing our society today is a direct results of flawed home upbringing.
Most often, the inability of institutions to properly examine the character of individuals before recruitment can affect and later damage the image of such institution. It is in this light that I want to focus on the January 18, 2026 kidnap of 177 worshippers in three Christian churches in Southern Kaduna which has been described as a national embarrassment. According to reports, armed bandits had invaded two Cherubim and Seraphim Churches and one Evangelical Church of All Winning (ECWA) church in Kurmin Wali community in Kajuru local government area of Kaduna state while Sunday service was in progress. The terrorists interrupted the service and ordered all the worshippers to lay face down.They then proceeded to search the victims, carting away valuables including cellphones and church offerings.Thereafter, the traumatised worshippers were marched into a nearby forest with seven of them later escaping.
Surprisingly, when social media first broke the news the police and Kaduna state government denied such incident ever happened.Statements by the state’s Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs and the Kaduna state police command led by Commissioner of Police Alhaji Muhammad Rabiu described the report of the kidnapping as “mere falsehood which is being peddled by conflict entrepreneurs who want to cause chaos”.
And they challenged “anyone to list the names of the kidnapped victims and other particulars.”
On his part, the chairman of Kajuru local government area, which includes Kurmin Wali and Dauda Madaki, insisted security forces had been sent to the area but found no sign of a kidnapping.
‘’We visited the church where the so-called kidnap took place. There was no evidence of the attack. I asked the village head, Mai Dan Zaria, and he said that there was no such attack.”
The audacious Southern kaduna kidnap exposed how rigorously government and security agencies can suppress the truth, a moral corruption that speaks to social decadence.
According to George Orwell, an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic, “in a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Note that it was the local arm of the Christian Association Group(CAN) that initially reported the kidnap incident which was vehemently denied by both the police and the government.
The police and government’s denial and the subsequent confirmation of the incident is quite regrettable.
The Kaduna Commissioner of Police, Rabiu, to use Nigeria’s common street slang, “fall our hand”. Rabiu’s handling of the Southern Kaduna kidnap saga is a huge indictment on the police, a tar on its integrity and image. Indeed, the CP behaved like a police chief who did not merit his rank and office. How can a Commissioner of Police receive a situation report and through intelligence report and without cross checking with the Department of State Security (DSS) or verifying from his subordinate on ground- the Divisional Police Officer, DPO incharge of Kurmin Wali or instructing him to further investigate and report back to him, rushed to the press to declare the kidnap incident a ruse? Whose interest was Rabiu protecting? Whose scripting was he following?
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Even more painful is that when the Force PPRO eventually confirmed the incident did take place, there was no apology from the police as an institution or the Kaduna police Command for misleading the general public.Many Nigerians had expected that the police would have first tendered an unreserved apology and later inform the public about the reposting of the Commissioner of Police and the DPO in Kurmin Wali. Again, I find a nexus between faulty family value and the behaviour of the CP.
The Kaduna incident has once again brought to the fore the need for state police and integration of community policing in Nigeria’s policing system.
CP Rabiu and the Kurmin Wali DPO do not probably understand the enormity of their unprofessional conduct because there has not been any consequences to such conducts by police personnel in the past. If a Commissioner of Police or an Area commander or a DPO had in the past been openly penalized for serious professional misconduct and inefficiency, I don’t think Rabiu would have exhibited the lackadaistical attitude he put up in the face of the kidnap of 177 Kaduna worshippers.
Coming to the faux pax by the Kaduna state government, I think Governor Uba Sani should borrow a leave, in terms of internal security monitoring, from his Enugu state counterpart, Governor Peter Mbah by establishing a security monitoring base complete with security drones. If there was one in place in Kaduna, it is my candid view that this pathetic and ugly incident would have been nipped in the bud. Even if the bandits were not detected the drone satellite would have assisted security personnel in the state to track down the kidnapped victims and their captors.
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Another look at the Benue security conundrum (1)
The security challenge in Benue State has passed through different shades of colorations that have defiled all attempted solutions. From 2010 when it became a national issue to this moment, Benue has remained a theatre of ceaseless blood letting. To properly situate Benue’s security conundrum, it’s important to x-ray the various efforts successive administrations in the state and past federal administrations had made to esure that the armed marauding Fulani herders stay away froom the state and allow farmers farm in peace. Human and material casualties of the Fulani herders’ onslaught in Benue are staggering. It is high time a permanent solution which is beneficial to the citizens who have borne the burnt of the crisis are found.
Solutions to this lingering security challenge that has claimed hundreds of lives since it became a multifaceted monster, have largely been a reflection of the methods that past governors of the state have adopted, and I will start this reflection from the government of Governor Gabriel Toruwa Suswam. It was during his tenure that the crises snowballed into national limelight and has continued ceaselessly since then.
In the early days of the Suswam administration, the Fulani herders and farmers clashes were seen as mere “skirmishes” that would die down and evaporate naturally through the dispute resolution mechanisms the locals have been used to, which many people in the state also knew as a result of the long standing relationships that our rural communities have with the Fulani pastoralists. However, this thinking was proved completely wrong in a very short time. The crisis which was, at this period, basically within the Agatu local government communities that have swats of fertiles land in the basin of the River Benue, started with intermittent and sporadic attacks from people suspected to be armed Fulani pastoralists. Several deaths were reported from these attacks regularly.
(To be continued)
