The leadership of the National Rescue Movement (NRM) said it is disturbed about how the nation has found itself in the current insecurity bedeviling the country and wondered whether the government is conscious of its primary responsibilities to the people of Nigeria.
The party, in a statement by its national publicity secretary, Sola Afuye, yesterday in Abuja, decried that kidnapping, particularly of innocent school children is becoming a norm in Nigeria.
It said that it is ugly and sad discussing the situation surrounding the whisking away of about 300 students on Thursday morning by armed bandits on motorcycles who stormed the LEA Primary and Secondary School in the Kuriga village of Chikun local government area in Kaduna State with a quick succession of the kidnap of at least 15 pupils from a Tsangaya School in Gada local government area of Sokoto State.
It condemned in strong terms the continued kidnapping of Nigerians and urged the federal government to stop at nothing to end insecurity in Nigeria.
The statement added that arising from the NRM state of the nation review meeting, the acting national chairman, Prince (Dr.) Chinedu Obi, expressed deep concerns on the unending despicable reports of the unchallenged abduction of Nigerians, particularly school children.
The party wondered how armed bandits stormed, invaded and attacked a community school premises on Thursday morning around 8:00am and about 100 pupils from the primary school and 187 from the secondary school were kidnapped unchallenged.
The opposition party said the recurrence of these sad situations is akin to a sign of a failed state, and should be reversed immediately, adding that the federal government should activate the required political will to reverse this ugly trend and as a matter of urgency deploy ICT infrastructure to the fight insecurity in Nigeria.
NRM also expressed concern about the psychological trauma confronting Nigerians by the slow pace in redesigning the nation’s security architecture to meet the growing insecurity in the face of huge resources of tax payers’ money going down the drain by the day, all in the name of upgrading security apparatus.
“NRM is aware that Kaduna State is less than 150km from Federal Capital Territory and shares borders with other four States of Nasarawa, Niger, Kano and Plateau. And concerned that since the early hours of Thursday and after days of these abductions no clue as to where this large number of children are kept and or fully rescued.
“This is a constitutional democracy that must be responsive and be ready to give answers to questions coming from every concerned citizen. We hope the Government will not dwell more on rhetoric that will make the family members of the abducted children to wait for so long as it was in the case of Chibok and Dapchi girls among others,” it said.
It said as a critical stakeholder and a political party wishing this government a peaceful and successful tenure, it believes that it is high time that the president takes the bull by the horn to ensure that all the heads of security agencies take decisive steps to deal with criminal elements in the country as well as look inwards to deal with the cases of saboteurs among the forces for better efficiency.
NRM however consoled the families of the abducted children, the people of Kaduna and Sokoto States, and all families in Nigeria that have suffered any form of security challenge and urged them to keep faith alive and trust that their loved ones would return home unhurt.
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