Failure of Northerners to tackle banditry is creating problems for all Nigerians – Afenifere

The Yoruba socio-political organization, Afenifere has said that insecurity is festering in the country because the governments and others who should be concerned are not doing what they are supposed to do.

In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, Afenifere cited the narrative by the Katsina State government that General Rabe Abubakar died a natural death.

Picking holes in the reason given by the state’s government on the cause of General Abubakar’s death, Ajayi said that powerful people particularly in the North “are shying away from confronting the ogre of insecurity for reasons best known to them even when this monster is consuming hundreds if not thousands of their citizens.

“By ascribing the cause of the General’s death to nature, Katsina State Government is giving the bandits an alibi to continue to perpetrate their evil acts”, he said.

According to him, the “failure of northern governments and leaders to rein in bandits in their midst is creating problems for people in the South including Yorubaland”.

Ajayi stated that the antics of the leaders in the north “is making efforts at tackling insecurity in the South a herculean task”.

Afenifere further opined that, the terror acts occurring in the Southwest are being perpetrated by “bandits from the northern part of the country as attested to even by security chiefs.

“For banditry and related insecurity acts to be stopped in Nigeria, there is the urgent need to take prompt steps against the perpetrators of these heinous crimes and their sponsors wherever they are”.

Afenifere lamented that the disclosure by Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde that abductors of school children and their teachers in Oriire local government of the state are hiding in a forest covering 10 local government areas has deepened concern for the state of insecurity in the heartland of Yorubaland in Nigeria.

According to Afenifere spokesman, the abductions of school children in Oyo and Borno States over a month ago put a serious slur on what would have been a joyous celebration of the 27th uninterrupted civil rule in Nigeria.

He concluded by calling on the Southwest governors to come together to secure the region while putting pressures on the federal government to be more decisive in tackling insecurity problems in the country.