Afenifere slams FG over attacks on president’s advance team, Kuje prison
By Stephen Gbadamosi
The attack on the advance presidential team to Daura, hometown of President Muhammadu Buhari in Kastina State, and the explosive attack on Kuje Prison in the nation’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are affirmations that the insecurity situation in Nigeria is getting out of hand at a rate faster than is acknowledged by the authorities who should deal with it, Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, has said.
Handing down this declaration, the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, in a release signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, on Wednesday, asked the Federal Government to wake up to the current realities in the country.
A terrorist group had, on Tuesday, at Dutsinma, Katsina State, attacked the advance team of security guards, protocols and media officers ahead of President Buhari’s trip to Daura for Sallah. The president is billed to be in Daura this week Friday for this year’s Ed-el-Kabir festival.
Evening of same day, Tuesday, July 5, suspected Boko Haram members stormed Kuje Prison in the FCT with explosives.
They operated for over one hour, according to reports, at the end of which many inmates were ‘freed’, with several officials of the correctional centre injured.
Ajayi expressed regret that the two attacks were not isolated, “as reports of terrorism attacks occasioning loss of lives, kidnapping, raping, bodily harms, etc. occur on a daily basis.”
He stated that what set the ones of this week’s Tuesday apart was its derrig-do nature.
“The nature of these attacks should send serious signals to the governments, security agencies and, indeed, all Nigerians. The one on the presidential team seems to be a coded language by enemies of thenation that they are not afraid of anyone, notwithstanding the status of such a person. For, it goes without saying that a presidential team would normally be fortified.
“So, for a group to attack such a team must be out of sheer bravado–which, unfortunately, further exposed how vulnerable our security situation is,” he said.
Ajayi went further to state that the attack on Kuje Correctional Centre, like some other attacks that occurred in such areas, “appears to be a statement by those enemies of Nigeria that they can strike anywhere and at any time. For, this Kuje attack, taken together with the fatal attack on a military team in Niger State last month, keeps reminding one of the build-up of the Afghanistan saga that led to the forceful take-over of government in that country last year. Everything needs to be done to ensure that such does not occur here.”
He added that were Federal Government to be sincere in the way it had been handling security breaches in the past, “the situation would not have degenerated to this sorry pass. By this we are referring to the kid-glove manner by which the government and its security arms have been dealing with those caught in banditry and terrorism.
“Normally, anyone around the president or governor ought to have a sense of safety, just as the presence of government ought to be an assurance for the citizens regarding their security.
“The attacks on the presidential team and on Kuje Prison, like the ones that had taken place in different parts of the country before, make Nigerians to feel more and more insecure.
“On a number of times, armed bandits have attacked governors, particularly those of Borno and Benue. They have attacked transport centres like airport and rail lines as well as military and police formations.
“These are places one should have a sense of highest safety and security. Their attacks on religious places and on clerics too seem to have become a routine. In that kind of situation, people’s sense of helplessness became heightened.
“So heightened was this that Zamfara State governor, supported by his Benue state counterpart, urged the people in their respective states to arm themselves. When that occurs, chaos and self-help would become the order of the day, making government redundant.”
Afenifere said that it, like many other well-meaning Nigerians, had, on several occasions, warned against what is happening now. It recalled its press statement of May 5, this year, while reacting to the assurance given by President Buhari during this year’s Ed-el-Fitri that insecurity had been curtailed in the country.
The pan Yoruba organisation had then, in a statement by Ajayi, asserted that “rather than looking at the immediate future with hope, Nigerians are living and moving around in fear and despondency, because of the insecurity they face at home, at work and even more so when travelling on highways.
“How then can one be hopeful in that kind of situation?”
Afenifere was emphatic that the nature of the ongoing terrorism attacks had shown that the objectives of those behind them went beyond religion or even economy, DailyTimesNGR gathered.
“It is, without any doubt, territorial and hegemonic in nature. Their aim is to ‘conquer’ indigenous people and impose their hegemony over them. Reports from some of the territories they have taken over revealed how they were forcing people to pay them taxes before those people could be allowed to carry out their daily activities,” the group said.
Ajayi maintained that it is the responsibility of the government that no external entity comes around to impose its force over the people of any area within its sovereignty.
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“Unfortunately, terrorists are having a field day, while those Nigerians look up to appear to be watching in helplessness.”
Prescribing effective ways out of the frightening situation, Afenifere’s spokesman advocated for an immediate setting up of local and state police, granting of free hand to security agencies to deal with the terrorists and devolving power to the states in a manner that would enable nationalities in the country to have greater leverage in the way affairs affecting their lives are being conducted.
“In other words, effective machinery must be set in motion for a proper restructuring of the country immediately, while states are allowed to set up their own police forces as a short-time measure to the insecurity ogre that is about to consume everybody,” Ajayi concluded.
