The widespread insecurity across the country is worrisome. The rise in the spate of kidnapping for ransom across Nigeria, particularly in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) underscores the deteriorating state of Nigeria\u2019s security situation. Not only are homes invaded by armed assailants and people abducted; their families also have to deal with the grueling task of sourcing for funds to pay ransom for their release in the midst of the biting economic situation in the country. The abduction of an entire family in the Bwari area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) early this year, the payment of \u00a0N100 million as ransom and the killing of one family member is one of many incidents of kidnapping reported in the FCT. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nwidespread kidnapping in the country has seen pupils, teachers and a school bus\ndriver abducted in Ekiti State, a\nmonarch killed, and his wife abducted in\nKwara State, within one week. Reports surfaced of fresh attacks in Mangu,\nPlateau State on Tuesday, January 23 in which 25 persons were killed, barely\none month after no less than 195 persons were killed and over 10,000 others\ndisplaced following attacks in several communities across Bokkos, Barkin Ladi\nand Mangu Local Government Areas of the State on Christmas eve. There have also\nbeen reports of further attacks on communities in Benue State on January 23, in\nwhich 30 persons were killed. On the same day, gunmen attacked Yandaka village\nin Batsari Local Government of Katsina State, where they killed three persons\nand abducted 32 others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nresponse of security agencies to the growing insecurity in the country has been\nless than satisfactory, despite increased defence budgetary allocation over the\nlast few years. In 2021, the defence budget stood at N966.4 billion, rose to\nN1.2 trillion in 2022 and then to N1.383 trillion in 2023. The Defence budget\nfor 2024 is N1.647 trillion, about 5.7 %\nof the entire 2024 budget. Similarly, in 2021, N455 billion was budgeted for\nthe Police, N559 billion in 2022 and N838 billion in 2023. In 2024, the Police\nbudget stands at N969.6 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite\nincreased budgetary allocations for security under the leadership of former\nPresident Muhammadu Buhari, insecurity worsened. Terrorism and insurgency rose\nin the North East, banditry seeped into the North West and North Central\nregions. In the South East, secessionist agitations and the trend of unknown\ngunmen took centre stage, with the South-South region experiencing frequent\nincidents of oil theft. In the South West, like most parts of the country,\nkidnapping became the order of the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nigerians\nexpect the long-standing challenge of insecurity to be firmly and decisively\naddressed by the Tinubu-led administration. It is imperative for the government\nto interrogate the root causes of the various dimensions of insecurity in order\nto devise a lasting solution to the problem, beyond condemnations and\nreassurances. The Nigerian Government must live up to its responsibility\nenshrined in section 14 (2)(b) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, which states\nthat the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of\ngovernment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The widespread insecurity across the country is worrisome. The rise in the spate of kidnapping for ransom across Nigeria, particularly in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) underscores the deteriorating state of Nigeria\u2019s security situation. Not only are homes invaded by armed assailants and people abducted; their families also have to deal with the grueling task […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3503,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3498\/revisions\/3503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}