BY MOHAMMED MOHAMMED
The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), the Media Rights Agenda (MRA) and 65 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have said President Muhammadu Buhari and the 36 Governors including the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have failed in their duty to ensure the security of the Nigerian people, even as they conclude that there is bloodletting over the country.
Briefing the media in Abuja on Sunday, the 68 CSOs averred that Nigeria is in dire straits, while stressing that all over the country, Nigerians, including children, are killed daily by terrorists and criminals as well as in extra-judicial killings by state actors with the government doing little or nothing about it.
While condemning the government on its failure, they said the Minister of Defence, has instead callously abdicated its responsibility by calling Nigerian citizens ‘cowards’ while urging civilians to ‘defend themselves’.
They said: “Kidnapping for ransom has assumed an industrial and deadly scale never witnessed on the African continent. Our children are no longer safe in schools and Nigerian citizens and communities are now pauperised by terrorists who extort huge ransoms while murdering their hostages. We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, what has now become the government’s standard state policy of using taxpayers’ money to pay terrorists thereby funding and encouraging terrorism and criminality.
The unending war in the North East with our troops often bearing the brunt of this government’s security failures, adding: “Gross injustices by President Buhari’s government against the Nigerian people such that peaceful protesters are threatened and attacked by the government’s security agents while terrorists carrying out mass murder, rape, maiming and kidnapping of Nigerians including women and children are feted, molly coddled, granted ‘amnesty’ and paid by the government.
“This is tantamount to funding and supporting terrorists, encouraging murder and the decimation of the Nigeria’s gallant troops and amounts to treason against the Nigerian State and people. Terrorist herder attacks on unarmed farming communities and reprisal attacks in the face of government inaction and failure to bring the terrorist herdsmen and their funders to justice;
“Large scale terrorist attacks in the North West irresponsibly tagged by the government as ‘banditry’ in a bid to downplay their criminality.”
According to them, industrial scale kidnappings all across the country, extrajudicial killings by state security agents in various forms, inter-ethnic violence and menace of political cult gangs and ethnic militia have taken over Nigeria’s socio-political and economic space.
They said Section 14 of the Constitution conferred on the federal government, the 36 state governments and the local governments to invest in the security of life and property of every citizen.
And since, armed robbery, kidnapping and murder or culpable homicide is state offences. All arrested suspects should be prosecuted by State Attorney Generals, they added.
“Nigeria is completely under-policed. As a matter of urgency, more security personnel should be employed, trained and motivated to defend the society. When an American citizen was recently kidnapped in Niger State no ransom was paid. Yet, a team of US troops invaded the country, killed two of the kidnappers and freed the abducted American
“We demand from this government, under the leadership of Buhari, has failed to protect Nigerians as is their primary duty under Section 14 (2)b of the 1999 Constitution and we hold President Buhari solely responsible as the buck stops at his desk. As CSOs, we call on the President to take immediate steps to provide political and moral leadership for the security crisis and ensure governmental actions are humane in tandem with Section 17 (2) (C) of the Constitution among others.”