Nigeria in the shackles of abductors and terrorists

BY INAOLAJI OLAYODE

The headline of this piece crawled to my brain while envisaging the pickle of the incessant kidnapping and the burning terrorism unleashed by the men of the underworld, metamorphosing this country into an abode of dastardly acts and evil perpetrations which has almost gone haywire. As a patriotic Nigerian, this issue has to be discussed for an outright panacea to be proffered swiftly. National dailies are replete with this horrendous news which has thrown gentle Nigerians into a deep pit of fear and state of mental unrest.

In July or thereabout, President Mohammadu Buhari’s convoy was brazenly attacked and two people met their untimely death, leaving many cars perforated by sporadic gunshots. This attack audaciously launched by those people thirsty for blood has been making me confirm that Nigerians’ lives are in replete peril. Frankly, the question that rang into my brain then was: Did the dog want to bite itself with its viperous teeth?

On Sunday, August 14, 2022, hoodlums purportedly invaded a market in Igalamela, Odolu local government of Kogi state, in broad daylight amidst an assortment of bullets being shot to decorate the air with the aim of invoking trepidation to the heart of the people. This attack led to the decimation of one innocent man called Johnson and tons of people got whisked away to an unknown destination. As reported, the invasion is the third of its kind in that particular bazaar. A humongous amount of N20 million was authoritatively demanded by those abductors who have been blindfolded with their desperate eagerness to garner illicit money not minding the language nemesis will speak in the nearest future.

Honesty, those who had encountered the pang of abduction can only cogitate on the unsavoury condition the abductees’ relatives, friends, and well-wishers would be. I am sure the whole earth would be in obscurity in their faces. This vividly reminds me of one Yoruba apophthegm that states thus: “Eni ti n wo alaare gan ni nnkan se ju”, which in English language means; “an individual treating the sick always suffers the most”. As the person prays for recuperation of the affected person, he/she would, also, not thwart or desist to be beseeching the Architect of the Universe not to transfer the ailment the person is suffering from to his body.

According to a report by Daily Post Newspaper, Government Science Secondary School, Nasarawa Eggon local government area in Nasarawa state, in almost dead of the night on Saturday, August 12, witnessed a dastardly act or scurrilous attack by unsuspected armed robbers who were armed to the teeth. In the process, they hacked a teacher, Auta Nasela, to death.

Oyo state, specifically Ogbomoso, the land of valiant, also experienced the metaphoric ‘Nigeria’. Within an interval of less than two months, three series of abductions were executed by the uninformed men who, reportedly, disguised in army uniforms. A manager of Alao-Akala Farm and a ‘doctor’ were captured and carted away to an unknown place. Albeit, they didn’t kidnap them on the same day. Before granting them freedom, after payment of ransom, they were callously subjected to thorough manhandling. What exacerbated the ire of the residents of Ogbomoso in Oyo state the most was the abduction and killing of a hotelier, a final year student of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso (LAUTECH) and others after payment of ransom. Consequently, a rally which was graced by the presence of eminent personalities, journalists of both local and national newspapers, securities operatives, monarchs, chiefs, patriotic Ogbomoso indigenes et al was launched to show their grievances.

However, the Nigerian security operatives are trying but not excellently well to get these incessant dastardly acts curbed. This is ostensible with the arrest of a 37-year-old abductor over a threat to kidnap three guiltless students of a private university in Oyo. Had it been they exercising their responsibility excellently, they would have put a dot to the menace of insecurity in the country. According to the constitution, one of the fundamental human rights which must be gleefully enjoyed by the citizens is the protection of lives and properties. It is unfortunate that the government saddled with this duty is not fully ready to provide a remedy. Or is there any plan underneath? Are these actions orchestrated by those in the corridor of power?

At this juncture, I want to admonish the government and advantageously-placed Nigerians, especially in the south-west, to come to their fellow Nigerians and south-westerners’ aid perhaps by empowering the conventional and non-conventional security personnel, so that they can be armed to teeth and have the unshaken courage to retaliate those buffoons brazenly unleashing terror and inflicting harms to Nigerians. Not everybody is powerless to protect himself; some are powerful. The trepidation of not wanting to overreact is what is hamstringing people from desisting to show any shred of resistance. If the government can’t help, let us help ourselves. We ought not to be maltreated to this extent.

Ó tó gé, ajinigbé, agbénipa, ó tó gé.

Olayode writes from Ogbomoso in Oyo state. He can be reached via [email protected]