The Yoruba socio-political organization, Afenifere has said deepening security crisis that pervades the country is getting out of hand.
The organisation said this in reaction to the attack on President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential advance team to Daura, Katsina State and the explosive attack on Kuje Prison by gunmen.
Afenifere said the attack on Buhari’s advance team was a message to Nigeria that its nefarious activities will not spare anyone.
A terrorist group had on Tuesday, at Dutsinma, Katsina State, attacked the advance team of security guards, protocol and media officers ahead of Buhari’s trip to Daura for Sallah.
The President is scheduled to be in Daura this week Friday for this year’s Ed-il-Kabir festival.
Evening of same day, suspected Boko Haram members stormed Kuje Prison in the Federal Capital Territory with explosives.
Reacting, Ajayi regretted that the two attacks were not isolated as reports of terrorism attacks occasioning loss of lives, kidnapping, raping, bodily harms etc occur on a daily basis.
He stated that what set the ones of this week apart was “its derring-do nature. Another indication that the country is under siege.”
A statement by Ajayi reads: “The nature of these attacks should send serious signals to the governments, to the security agencies and indeed to all Nigerians. The one on the Presidential Team seems to be a coded language by enemies of the nation that they are not afraid of anyone notwithstanding the status of such a person. For, it goes without saying that a Presidential Team would normally be fortified. So, for a group to attack such a team must be out of sheer bravado – which unfortunately further exposed how vulnerable our security situation is”.
Ajayi went further to state that the attack on Kuje Correctional Centre, like some other attacks that occurred in such areas, “appears to be a statement by those enemies of Nigeria that they can strike anywhere and at any time. For, this Kuje attack, taken together with the fatal attack on a military team in Niger State last month, keeps reminding one of the build-up of the Afghanistan saga that led to the forceful take-over of government in that country last year. Everything needs to be done to ensure that such does not occur here”.
He added that were federal government to be sincere in the way it has been handling security breaches in the past,
“The situation would not have degenerated to this sorry pass. By this we are referring to the kid-glove manner by which the government and its security arms have been dealing with those caught in banditry and terrorism.
“Normally, anyone around the President or Governor ought to have a sense of safety just as the presence of government ought to be an assurance for the citizens regarding their security.
“The attacks on the Presidential Team and on Kuje Prison, like the ones that had taken place in different parts of the country before, make Nigerians to feel more and more insecure. On a number of times, armed bandits have attacked governors, particularly those of Borno and Benue. They have attacked transport centres like airport and rail lines as well as military and police formations. These are places one should have a sense of highest safety and security. Their attacks on religious places and on clerics too seem to have become a routine. In that kind of situation, people’s sense of helplessness became heightened.”
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