From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) has a demanded for a clamp-down on bandits and kidnappers terrorizing Northern Nigeria.
According to the organisation ,it was not enough for the government to rejoice over the release of school children without ensuring that the perpetrators face the consequences of their action.
The group in a statement by the NAS Capoon, Mr Abiola Owoaje, titled Bandits Siege on Nigeria, Enough of the Empty Rhetoric’ stated that the recent kidnap in Kagara in Niger and Jangebe in Zamfara States,“has again put in sharp focus the deteriorating security situation in the country, and the discernible scandalous incapacitation of government and security agencies in tackling the issue of terrorism and banditry in Northern Nigeria.”
Owoaje who berated the Federal Government and the various state governments in Northern Nigeria for allowing bandits free reign tasked Pres hiident Muhammadu Buhari, as the Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Forces to give the matching orders to security agencies to arrest the unbridled decline into anomie especially in northern Nigeria.”
The statement read in part: “The bandits through their activities have declared war on Nigeria and its people. Therefore, the Nigerian government must respond robustly and decisively to put an end to this cyclical show of shame. Terrorist, bandits have invaded Nigeria and the government and its security agencies cannot continue this comatose rhetoric of zero effectual action.
Kidnapping under the guise of banditry has become a lucrative industry in Nigeria. It is utterly defeatist to negotiate with or appease the criminal elements behind it. Is ransom reward not the purpose of kidnapping in the first place? So how exactly does the government think that delivering ransom and red carpet celebrity to criminals will stop the criminality.
“We call on the Federal Government and the various state governments to end all forms of negotiations directly or by proxy with these reprehensible gangs, and clamp down on them, using legitimate and determined compelling force of law and justice. It is incumbent on the Nigerian government to make it clear in unmistakable actionable terms that it would no longer condone kidnapping of school children and other citizens by crushing these networks of terrorists, kidnappers and bandits.