The reprehensible Kajuru abduction

The abduction of 177 worshippers from churches in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State on January 17 is reprehensible. It is a tragedy made more horrifying not only by the cruelty of the crime, but by the sheer scale of state failure it has exposed. It shouldn’t have happened. The attack wasn’t an unforeseeable act of violence. It was the predictable outcome of a security system that has failed repeatedly—and now catastrophically.

Armed men invaded places of worship, rounded up congregants, and led them away into the forests. According to local accounts, villagers sighted the abducted worshippers being marched off by their captors. Yet no effective resistance followed. No timely intervention came. The worshippers vanished into the forests, and with them went whatever confidence remained in the state’s ability to protect its citizens. This is utterly condemnable.

Worse still, the initial response of the authorities was denial. Police initial statements, echoed by local and state officials, downplayed or questioned reports of the abduction. If there was any abduction, provide the names of the abducted, they said initially. But it was a deliberate attempt to hide a tragedy.

In a region already scarred by violence and distrust, this instinct to deny rather than confront reality was not merely incompetent, it was cruel. It sent a chilling message to victims and their families: that even in their darkest hour, official messaging mattered more than human lives. This is bizarre.

This incident has intensified long-standing fears in Southern Kaduna, Plateau and Benue states that Christian communities are increasingly vulnerable to extremist violence. Whether or not the government accepts that characterisation, it cannot escape the facts on the ground. Churches have been attacked. Worshippers have been abducted. Entire communities live with the constant fear of violence. When such events are met with silence, denial, or delay, suspicion thrives and trust collapses.

A government exists first to protect life and property. When it cannot secure places of worship, when citizens can be abducted en masse without immediate consequence, then that government has failed in its most basic responsibility. President Bola Tinubu pledged to restore security and protect Nigerians. For the families of the abducted 177 worshippers, the promise has not been kept.

This is not simply a failure of manpower or equipment. It is a failure of structure. Nigeria’s centralided policing system is overwhelmed, distant, and dangerously slow. Decisions and action are hamstrung by bottlenecks at the federal level. Intelligence gathering is shallow where it should be deepest—within communities themselves. Vast territories remain effectively ungoverned, providing ideal conditions for bandits and terror groups to operate with impunity.

The Kajuru abduction lays bare an uncomfortable truth: the security forces, as presently constituted, are incapable of protecting Nigerians across the country’s size and complexity. Pretending otherwise is no longer an option.

This reality makes the call for state police unavoidable. It is no longer an abstract constitutional debate or a partisan talking point. It is a matter of survival. State police would bring security closer to the people, improve intelligence management, and enhance faster, local responses to threats. Community members know their terrain, their patterns, and the dangers far better than distant command structures ever could.

Nigeria’s rigidly centralised policing model is an anomaly. Countries with far less diversity and fewer security challenges operate multilayered systems. The United States and the United Kingdom both combine federal, state or regional, and local policing. Some cities even maintain independent police forces tailored to their specific needs.

Nigeria, with its vast population, porous borders, ethnic diversity, and expansive forests, has operated with a one-size-fits-all model of policing that clearly does not fit.

The country urgently needs a four-layered policing structure: federal, state, local council, and community-based security. Such a framework would not weaken national unity; it would strengthen it by restoring public confidence and reclaiming ungoverned spaces from criminal control. Non-state actors thrive where the state is absent. A layered security system would deny them that vacuum.

None of this diminishes the immediate priority: the safe rescue of the 177 abducted worshippers. Their fate and the agony of their families must not be treated as just another headline in a crowded news cycle. Their rescue is not a favour. It is an obligation.

But rescue alone will not suffice. If the perpetrators go back into the forests unpunished, the message to Nigerians will be unmistakable: that mass abduction carries little risk and enormous reward. That message would be an invitation to further terror. This must not be allowed to happen.

Justice, visibly and decisively administered, is the only true relief. Until the kidnappers are apprehended, prosecuted and punished and until the conditions that allow such crimes to recur are dismantled, Kajuru will not be an isolated tragedy. It will be a warning ignored.

The 177 persons abducted on January 17 are not mere statistics. They are citizens. Their lives matter. The federal government should not fail them. Let the government rescue them.