The Presidency has accused Sub-Regional Forces of Fueling Kidnappings and Security Challenges in Nigeria.
Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, alleges that sub-regional forces are actively involved in destabilizing Nigeria, particularly in incidents of student kidnappings and security lapses.
In an interview on TVC news, Ngelale stated that these forces are conspiring against the country’s stability but assured that the Federal Government is taking action in response.
Recent incidents include the abduction of 287 pupils from a school in Kaduna State and the kidnapping of Tsangaya students in Sokoto State, which combines Islamic and Western education.
Ngelale assured that President Bola Tinubu is working hard to secure all parts of the country, noting that the US government had promised to provide assistance for the release of the abducted Kaduna schoolchildren.
The Presidency spoke as the Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, urged President Tinubu to go after sponsors of terror.
However, experts against financial crimes drawn from Anglophone member states of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, and the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa, GIABA, yesterday, called for concerted efforts against terrorism financing and money laundering.
Meanwhile, on a day bandits demanded N40trillion ransom for 16 abducted Kaduna residents, one of the kidnapped students in Kuriga, Mustapha Abubakar, who escaped, narrated his ordeal in the hands of their captors, saying he stealthily hid in a shrub like a snake and escaped, while they were being moved by the bandits.
Sub-regional forces conspiring against Nigeria’s stability
On the conspiracy against Nigeria, Ngelale said: “across the North, we understand that some of the sub-regional geographical forces are actively conspiring against the stability of the Nigerian nation. We are responding to it. We are doing it in a way that is concerted with our neighbours.
“It is worth noting that the United States government has also pledged its assistance to ensure that there is a full return of all schoolchildren who were kidnapped recently in Kaduna.
“We will continue to intensify our collaboration not only within the region but internationally to make sure that some of the regional actors that are conspiring against our nation are brought to justice and ultimately silenced for the future of our country.”
Go after sponsors of terror, Afenifere tells Tinubu
On the recent abduction of schoolchildren in Kaduna and Sokoto states, Afenifere, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary and Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Mogaji Gboyega Adejumo and Prince Justice Faloye, asked the President not to leave room for excuses.
He said: “the recrudescence of this human tragedy is as clear to the Afenifere as the daylight is distinct from the eventide.
“Since democracy took off, this pattern remains constant, ever present; create chaos, destabilize the government, embarrass the President, finally, and disgrace the President out of office.
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‘’No president since 1999 has escaped this scourge, coming with the political Sharia against Obasanjo, the Niger Delta violent political agitation of Obasanjo and Yar’Adua and cleverly solved by the duo; the Boko Haram religion-later-turned-political instrument to embarrass a sitting Southern Christian president as it was with Jonathan, who was told to convert to Islam, followed by the kidnapping extraordinaire of the Chibok girls’ type, the final straw that shocked Jonathan out of office.
“The Abikus, coming once a regime and for repeated times from as far back as the Zango-Kataf crisis, come with land-grabbing, human displacement, and subjugation of a people over another, often planned, aided, lauded and prompted by those self-styled as owners of Nigeria.
“They were terrorists; Buhari curiously preferred to call them bandits. Their acts as aggressors, killing farmers, destroying their produce, and stealing indigenous peoples’ lands, clearly marked them as terrorists. “Buhari’s government would rather term these acts as farmers/herders clashes. The most disturbing expository, elucidatory, explicative reality about the whole saga is that these terrorists are known to the government.
“Mr. President, you have to be brutally reminded of these recrudescences in history, a disease constant, an Abiku, real, clear and present.
“On Christmas Eve in 2023, there was a massacre on the Plateau. Chief Ayo Adebanjo, leader of Afenifere, led other leaders that make up the four zones from the South-West, South-East, South-South and the Middle-Belt on a condolence visit to the governor and the Gbom Gwom Jos and to the entire people on the Plateau. About 300 humans were slaughtered like rams.
“A hero makes history, is not afraid, and does not turn a blind eye. Mr President, arrest these perpetrators now, no excuses, Mr President…
“It is down to you, Mr President if you would rather go the way of your predecessors, by looking the other way and letting innocent blood flow, be disgraced and set for an early exit or find the strength, the will and the courage to face the sponsors of terror, with the resolve to eradicating this Abiku scourge from ever again taking root anywhere in our land. Through your policies, fiscal and monetary, the local currency has suffered the worst trajectory of devaluation of 35% in just your very first nine months in office, the very first massive devastation in the history of this country.
‘’The naira plunged to its lowest point on record in official trading as a shortage of US dollars persisted, despite promises by the government to boost supply.
“Go after the sponsors of terror. Restructure this country. Expedite action towards creation of state police. Return the country to a parliamentary system of government. Bring back Regionalism. And watch our countrymen and our hopeless children begin to live again in dignity, right before your very eyes.”
