According to Wikipedia, a multilingual online encyclopedia, banditry is a form of organized crime committed by muggers, usually involving the threat or use of force. In modern usage, banditry can be equated with gangsterism, robbery, looting and theft. In Nigeria, banditry has now become a professional activity. Bandits hold field days in the center and north-west of the country and kidnap citizens, including school children.
Since the beginning of 2021, up to 950 students have been kidnapped from their schools, many of whom are still being held captive by their kidnappers.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), around 500 school children have been abducted in four separate kidnappings in central and north-western Nigeria in the last six weeks alone.
The latest kidnapping occurred on Monday, July 5, 2021, when gunmen kidnapped 121 students at Bethel Baptist School in Kaduna, killing two security guards in the attack.
Up to 136 students at Islamiyyah Salihu Tanko School in Tejina, Niger were kidnapped in May 2021 and the kidnappers demanded a ransom of £100 million. In June, 83 students and seven employees at the Federal Government College (FGC) in Kebbi state were abducted.
These and many other reported cases of bandit kidnappings impact the education of kidnapped students. The kidnapped students stayed away from school during their captivity, and some died because the ransom was not paid on time.
The education sector in Nigeria, like other sectors, has already been badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic that ravaged the world last year.Schools, like other areas, were closed and students were unable to continue due to disruptions in the school calendar.
The level of education in Nigeria is gradually declining due to years of neglect in the funding sector combined with a lack of educational infrastructure and a shortage of teachers and staff. Many of the 276 schoolgirls abducted by terrorist group Boko Haram from a state girls’ school in Chibok, Borno state, are still missing and have no idea where they are. Student Leah Sharibu, a Christian among 121 students kidnapped more than three years ago in Dapchi, Yobe State, was also not released because she refused to convert to Islam.
In addition to the activities of bandits specializing in kidnapping students.T he senseless killings by the notorious Boko Haram, Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP) province and its herdsmen continue to be a concern unaddressed by the Nigerian federal government.
Hundreds of thousands of people died in killings and massacres by Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa, and in massacres by Fulani herders.
In the current government’s six years in power, insecurity has become cancerous, and the government lacks the political will to address it. Nigerians live in fear; Citizens cannot sleep with their eyes closed. There are fears that people are moving from one part of Nigeria to another due to the activities of kidnappers and bandits on the country’s streets.
The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Samson Ayokunle, reported on the recent kidnapping of 121 students at the Bethel Baptist School in Kaduna, revealing that the national security forces are overwhelmed by the growing insecurity in the country.
Borno State Governor, Babagan Zulum and Colonel Abubakar Umar (rt.), a former military administration official, insisted that the Nigerian military lacked the manpower and equipment to wage an effective counterinsurgency war.
The situation of insecurity in the country and the federal government’s casual attitude towards the reduction are signs that some members of the government are taking advantage of it. How else to explain the fact that the military, especially the Air Force, with the millions of dollars that the government has allocated and spent to date to purchase military equipment, have failed to find the hideouts of the kidnappers, thugs and rebels who committed these crimes? How could one explain how criminals, kidnappers, or insurgents would break into a school at random, kidnap 121 or more students, put them on motorcycles or trucks, and then take all the students on a long journey to their destination? detained without being intercepted by state security agencies.
The president of the Kaduna Baptist Conference and owner of the Bethel Baptist School, Rev. Yahaya Adamu Jangado, is said to have said that the gunmen communicated with the school authorities by telephone to request food for the detained students. If something like this happened in countries like UK, Canada, America and many other major countries around the world, undercover security officers would intercept the conversation and act quickly to free the kidnapped students from their captivity.
The Nigerian government is acting in bizarre ways amid the myriad of insecurity issues plaguing the country.
Security officials such as Nigerian Police, Nigerian Army and other security officials who act quickly can only be seen when a coalition of civil society and Nigerian citizens take to the streets to protest, and then the Nigerian Police and Nigerian Army withdraw their deployed armor. to prevent Protestants from organizing a peaceful demonstration there.
An example of this is a protest organized by the Yoruba Agitators on Saturday 3 July 2021 in the Ojota district of Lagos. Armored tanks and Nigerian police were mobilized to the scene under the command of Lagos State Police Commissioner Hakeem Odumosu. , who was spotted in war camouflage and with a gun in hand. Protesters were dispersed as police intermittently fired, resulting in a stray bullet hitting and killing a 16-year-old girl, identified simply as Jumoke, an ice cream seller.
The question that needs to be answered is why do the security officers shoot fleeing unarmed protesters?
It is unfortunate that Nigerians have to endure this situation until the next elections. Until then, may God bless and protect the Federal Republic of Nigeria and her people.
*Olatunbosun Awoniyi is a public affairs analyst who wropte this piece from Lagos, Nigeria
