•The killing of Ekiti monarchs and kidnap of pupils and their teachers signpost a dreadful trend

Perhaps nothing represents the grief of most Nigerians like the public weeping by the House of Representatives member representing Oye/ikole-Ekiti Federal Constituency, Akin Rotimi, who broke down in tears while reporting to the house the killing of two Ekiti monarchs and the abduction of school children and their teachers.

This sad narrative is coming barely weeks after the people of Plateau State, again as in the last few years, experienced the perennial killings in several communities, with more than 100 people slaughtered in cold blood. Before the blood that soaked the land could dry, more attacks claimed dozens of lives there. The number and magnitude of attacks make some other kidnappings and killings around the country somewhat pale into insignificance.

The consistency of attacks, kidnappings and killings seem so overwhelming.

Just last month, the six daughters of a family were kidnapped, one killed and ransom allegedly paid for the release of the other five. Another family lost a nursing mother. In the army housing estate in Abuja, two individuals were kidnapped, giving the impression that even the core security providers for the territorial and domestic areas were themselves vulnerable and seemingly helpless.

We are saddened by the fact that the problem of insecurity in the country keeps worsening, with the attendant multi-faceted outcomes of socio-economic proportions. Government’s main purpose of existence is to ensure the safety and welfare of citizens. If governments at all levels fail in this, then the people would be in trouble and, by implication, the socio-economic imperatives become direr.

The loss of lives, citizens’ discontent, the economic and social implications of high level of insecurity, inflation, unemployment, food insecurity, are too serious and the security agents must take more decisive actions to stem the tide. There is no country with absolute security, but every country tries to minimise insecurity through overt and covert measures.

Insecurity is costing the nation a lot. The kidnap of school children that was highlighted by the abduction of the Chibok girls, many of who are still unaccounted for, brought into focus the bizarre angle to the activities of terrorists and other non-state actors in targeting children and other vulnerable demographics in their daily lives. The social ill has so far spread across the country. In Zamfara, Niger, Kaduna and some other Northern states, the abduction of school children seems to have become a norm rather than an aberration. In the South East, the obnoxious sit-at-home often brutally enforced by non-state actors has been disrupting economic and social activities, including academic calendars.

The farmers in the North have continually complained about being scared away from their farms by bandits. The effect of this is being felt across the country, as food insecurity is biting hard, with farmers too scared to risk their lives going to farms. At some point, there were lamentations about some communities losing their farm lands or being forced to pay ransom to bandits and terrorist groups before they can go to the farms.

For a country with the highest level of out-of-school children to be bedevilled by school abductions is too serious to be ignored. The Safe School Programme seems to have failed, as no child in the country must be afraid of accessing the basic rights enshrined in the constitution and United Nations treaties concerning the rights to freedom and education. No child should be abducted for wanting to get education. Parents should not have to choose between education and living children.

The government has to be very decisive to stem the tide of insecurity. The cultural shock of the violation of children, traditional and religious institutions is unacceptable. The two monarchs killed in Ekiti merely joined the long list of monarchs that had suffered such tragic fate across the country. That the culprits are hardly apprehended, not to talk of face prosecution, in a way strengthens the criminals.

While we await the rescue of the Ekiti school children and their teachers, barricades must be seen to be set for non-state actors holding the nation hostage.

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