Still On Abba Kyari, Crime Fighting And The Need To Curtail Disturbing Incidences Of Crime In The Country (6) -By Hajia Hadiza Mohammed

This article is necessitated by the rising spate of crime and banditry that have pervaded the once peaceful city of Abuja the nation’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT). When I did the fifth article on the Abba Kyari series I thought it was going to be the last on that theme but I was jolted by the terrifying crime rate in the FCT. In the epistolary I did last week on kidnapping and insecurity on the FCT, I did highlight the innumerable cases of banditry and abduction for ransom the FCT and apparent helplessness of the government to confront the security challenges requiring greater commitment of the government and the deployment of efficient and dedicated officers of which the DCP Abba Kyari should be one given his wealth of experience, pedigree and litany of accomplishments in the sphere of crime fighting. The impunity and temerity with which these men of the underworld operate in Abuja is horrifying. And there have been many insinuations concerning that. While some say it is poverty and joblessness that is the cause, some say it is the security officers that are negligent, some attribute it corruption that is endemic in the country and some attribute the cause to sabotage. It is also said that it is the porosity of Nigerian borders, which has enabled the cross-border flow of weapons and criminal elements that is the cause.

But whatever the reason, the truth is that these criminal elements have overpowered our security operatives. And therefore there is urgent need to rejuvenate our national security apparatchik. While we utilize intelligence and technology, we must not neglect the engagement of intelligent officers with track record of performance. This is where the recall and reinstatement of the likes of Abba Kyari who is a veteran in combating crime comes in. It is estimated that there are over 100 armed bandit groups with an average of 30 members each operating the Northwest Nigeria alone. The menace of kidnapping in Nigeria is attracting a lot of academic enquiries and this is projecting the nation in bad light.

In the last essay I did about kidnapping and insecurity in the FCT, published last week in some of our national dailies, I did list some of the kidnap incidents that have taken place in the FCT.

Ironically, the day the article was published there was the news of attack on the River Park Estate, the second biggest estate in the FCT after Gwarimpa and the invasion of the Army Post Service Housing Estate in Kurudu and the abduction of a general by kidnappers who dressed in a military uniform and the abduction of a business man in the Gudu area.

In this piece, I will try to highlight the many abduction cases in the country since the exit of Mr. Abba Kyari. Indeed, the kidnap for Ransom (K4R) has increased in the last two years. And the victims include: expatriates, businesspeople, schoolchildren, women, politicians, government officials, diplomats, traditional rulers, travellers rich and poor alike. According to a tally done by This Day Newspaper it is estimated that, as at March 2021, over 618 schools had been closed in Northern Nigeria due to the frequent attacks and abduction of students in the states of Sokoto, Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Niger, and Yobe. In 2022, we witnessed the brutal killing of 40 worshippers in a Church in Owo, Ondo State in the Southwest Nigeria by gunmen suspected to be terrorists. Also in the same year, Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP), a splinter faction of the Boko-Haram insurgent carried out a high profile attack on the Kuje Maximum Security Prison within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) that allowed hundreds of prisoners to escape.

According to a survey by BSM, a Nigerian risk consultant entity as reported in the New York Times of 24th February, 2023, between July 2021 and June 2022, more than 3,400 people were abducted across the country, and 564 others were killed and more than $1.1 million was paid as ransom, in kidnapping-related violence. In the past, the nation’s major security problem was majorly in the northeast where militants with the extremist groups Boko-Haram and local affiliates of the Islamic State have killed at least 10,000 people in the past five years, and displaced about 2.5 million people. According to a tally by the international Crisis Group, in 2022 alone, armed groups killed over 10,000 people in Nigeria as reported by the New York Times.

In 2021 alone, there were over ten instances of kidnapping in our institutions of higher learning. On May 26th 2022 the Primate of the Methodist Church in Nigeria Samuel Kanu was kidnapped on a highway between Abia and Imo State and a ransom of a hundred million was paid for his release. According to The Cable, citing data from National Security Tracker (NST) over 4,545 people were killed in Nigeria while 4,611 others were kidnapped in Nigeria in 2022. The Kaduna State government reported that in 2021 armed bandits killed 1,192 persons and abducted 3,348 others across.
The list is inexhaustible and frightening requiring urgent and drastic attention. My honest recommendation is that the intelligent, experienced and tested officers like the super cop Abba Kyari be engaged to fight the scourge of armed banditry in the country.

Hajia Hadiza Mohammed
hajiahadizamohammed@gmail.com
An actress, social activist, politician
London, UK