The Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, yesterday, said steps to curb the kidnapping and terrorism threatening to over-run the country were within the ambits of the stakeholders “if they are sincerely ready to stop the deadly menace.”
The group identified the stakeholders as the government, security agencies and the people, adding that an adjunct to the list is network providers in the communication industry.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, Afenifere said that the stakeholders had what it takes to put an end to “or at least drastically reduce the incidence of terrorism in our midst if they are truly committed to doing so.”
The statement read: “We start from the seemingly weakest yet very significant sector, the telecommunication. A few years ago, when Nigerians were stampeded to register for the National Identification Number, Bank Verification Number, as well as registering telephone numbers and matching some of these numbers, the argument put up was that doing so would make it easier for criminals to be nabbed by security agencies. Years down the line, years after the registrations have taken place and years after virtually every person using or owning telephone number(s) are in the database accessible to the government, criminality and terrorism are not only still with us, they are also festering with unprecedented ferocity!”
Afenifere said that failure to use tracking methods to nab criminals, especially those using telephone sets to communicate, is a serious indictment on those who were supposed to include such in their intelligence gathering and criminal fighting strategies.
Meanwhile, the President has also been urged to give a presidential order empowering states and councils to set up local police services, saying that such local police outfit must be a necessary wherewithal to operate as police.
To make this permanent, Afenifere spokesman said that mechanisms must also be put in place for restructuring the country such that constituents would be better positioned to take their fates in their own hands in line with what we used to have before the military truncated the regional arrangement in 1966.
Ajayi concluded by calling on leaders in areas where banditry seems to have become a norm to ‘wake up’ and put an end to their present lackadaisical attitude so as to prevent the imminent catastrophe.
