A pro-democracy and Non-governmental body-Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has accused the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, of gross insensitivity and nonchalance to the plight of the six students of a Lagos model school kidnapped over 50 days ago.
In a statement by its national co-ordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the national media affairs director, Zanaib Yusuf, HURIWA said it was shameful that the acting president was seen celebrating his wife’s golden jubilee and attending high society wedding of the daughter of the Ogun State governor and the son of a presidential aide, Abike Dabiri-Erewa even when such national calamity like the kidnap of school children are yet to be resolved and the schools made sufficiently secured for meaningful and constructive learning activities.
HURIWA expressed dismay at the inability of the inspector general of police, Ibrahim Idris, and the director general of the Department of State Services, Lawal Musa Daura, to unravel those behind the sensational abduction of the six school boys even when it has been widely reported that the parents have been cajoled by the hoodlums to part with over N30 million and yet their children aren’t freed.
“The security forces especially the Nigeria Police right under the command and control of the Presidency have spectacularly failed to rescue these unfortunate Nigerian school boys whose parents have coughed out over N30 million ransom without seeing their children. This is a serious dent on the international image of Nigeria which has rapidly pushed Nigeria up into the top 20 most dangerous places on the Planet Earth.”
HURIWA further stated that, “It is the greatest embarrassment of the decade that armed kidnappers in Lagos have on more than one occasion breached the security of schools and kidnapped hapless children of poor Nigerians and the Police authorities and other security services have not jointly embarked on surgical covert operation to rescue these boys even when the same security forces sprang up and deployed intelligence led crack team to rescue the wife of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria when she was kidnapped in Edo State.”
The rights group has therefore, charged the Acting President to personally direct that all the security heads in Nigeria must ensure the immediate release of these school boys.
“We urge the Acting President to also ensure that Nigeria establishes a national anti-kidnapping security joint task force to be composed of operatives and officers drawn from the crack teams of all the security forces in Nigeria because of the diverse effects of kidnapping which discourages foreign direct investors from coming to Nigeria.”
Besides, HURIWA said it is unbecoming that the Federal and State governments will fail to discharge the primary constitutional obligation of providing security of lives and property of Nigerians and yet the political class go about with hundreds of armed security forces and letting armed kidnappers to have field days kidnapping helpless citizens.
HURIWA recalled that the six Senior Secondary School students of Lagos State Model College, Igbonla, in Epe area, were early on 25th May 2017 kidnapped by unknown gunmen.
HURIWA also recalled that four students and two staff of the school were abducted in October last year. The kidnappers involved in the yet unresolved criminal operation according to police sources, were suspected to be members of a militant kidnap gang that had carried out several kidnappings, armed robbery and the killings of security agents around Lagos and Ogun states.
HURIWA therefore wonders why the security forces have yet to arrest the kingpins of this latest kidnap incident when the Police already have actionable intelligence on the suspected perpetrators of the heinous crimes against humanity.
HURIWA has therefore warned that it may begin international advocacy campaign alongside its allies and foreign friends to inform the international community that Nigeria is no longer safe for the lives and property of the citizens and foreign visitors even as the Rights group may appeal to the United Nations Security Council to send in security forces to stop the killings of unarmed members of the civil populace in Nigeria.
