OUTRAGE, on Friday, greeted Thursday night’s open fraternization between Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi, the Niger State government and bandits who abducted students and teachers of Government Science College, Kagara, in Rafi Local Government Area of the state. The bandits also killed a student of the school during the abduction. Sheikh Gumi led a delegation that included high-ranking officials of Niger State to a negotiation meeting with the bandits in Tagina Forest, at the end of which Gumi said the bandits showed positive signs of releasing the students and renouncing banditry. Leaders of the Niger Delta under the aegis of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), their Yoruba counterparts, the Middle Belt Forum (MBF) and other similar groups and leaders across the country described the meeting and the negotiation as bizarre and an endorsement of criminality. PANDEF condemned the meeting and described kidnapping as having become an enterprise.
PANDEF’s National Publicity Secretary, Ken Robinson, said in an interview with Saturday Tribune on Friday that the country had become a ludicrous state. He said that the situation would not be allowed to continue forever as the rest of the country would not sit back and watch.
Robinson said: “ It (kidnapping of students) has become an enterprise. The bandits are allowed to move around freely and audaciously go to school, kidnap school children, kidnap citizens and the likes at will and the so-called Sheikh Gumi will lead a team to go and negotiate with taxpayers’ money given to them and then the next day, they will fly go somewhere else to kidnap. It is an enterprise now.
“It is shameful that the Minister of Defence is saying that Nigerians should defend themselves because as it is now, the government has been overwhelmed by the bandits and there is a Gumi that goes to the forest with government officials.
“That means government officials know where these bandits are in the forest and they are not arrested; nothing happens to them; they are given money to release people and business continues. It is a shame. Nigeria is a funny country.
“How funny the country has become is really ironic. It is ridiculous that in the Eastern Region of the country, Easterners, who are peacefully coming together to form a security outfit to protect their lives and livelihood, are being attacked with the full force of the Nigerian military; aircrafts flying over forest to bombard innocent citizens who are working to protect their livelihood.
“On the other hand, you have bandits in the forest who kidnap at will, who destroy livelihood at will, who kill at will, being tolerated and accommodated.
“Government officials going to the forest to meet with them and negotiate the release of kidnapped kids and air force aircraft are not bombarding the forest.
“Nigeria is a ridiculous country. That is the truth. And this situation will not be allowed to continue forever. The rest of the country will not sit back and be watching this very funny drama.
“Someday, something will happen in this country. I am sorry but that is the truth.
The PANDEF spokesman advised President Muhammadu Buhari to desist from his “nepotistic pastime if the country must remain an entity.”
He said: “As a responsible organisation, PANDEF has continued to call on Mr President to become the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, not the president of a region.
“The nepotism in the country is too much. It is too glaring that people are not treated as the same. Some persons are given preferential treatment and others are treated as criminals. In fact, the victims are criminalised and victimized, while those perpetrating criminality of all sorts are being tolerated.
“So, it is for government to rise up to the occasion to become a neutral government that will protect the lives and properties of all Nigerians. These bandits are criminals. They are marauders. They should be so dealt with and smoked out of the country. “ They are threatening the peace and unity of this country and this sentiment and attachment should be done away with and the Nigerian Armed Forces should treat them as criminals.”
