The All Nigeria Peoples Party [ANPP] received the string of kidnapping and terrorism news making the rounds in the media with sadness. Last week gunmen kidnapped six workers including two foreigners at a Lebanese-owned construction site in Bauchi. Yesterday, gunmen attacked a vessel off the coast of Bayelsa State, kidnapping six foreigners. Also on Wednesday, the Department of State Security Services [SSS] paraded three persons, including the leader of an Islamic sect based in Ilorin, Kwara State, Abdullahi Mustapha Berende, who they arrested over a plot to assassinate former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and former Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki; and for spying on some foreign targets in Nigeria for the purpose of future attacks.
Our great party is worried over these surging cases of kidnapping and terrorism for their potential to throw a spanner in the works of our burgeoning democracy. Therefore, we condemn these acts of kidnapping and espionage, for they are unpatriotic and detrimental to our growth and development as a people; and will tarnish our image in the comity of nations. Nevertheless, we commend the SSS for a professional and patriotic job well done, as it gives us hope that intelligence gathering, which we have maintained is key to fighting insecurity in the land, is being effectively deployed by our security agencies.
We hereby call on the good people of Nigeria not to allow poverty to befuddle their nationalistic vision. Granted, there is untold hardship in the land, certainly caused by the ruling party who has used us as unfortunate guinea pigs in a fourteen years experiment; but we admonish that Nigerians should put the nation above every other interest. No citizen should allow him or herself to be used by any foreign interest to entrench terror and insecurity in the land. We have no other country but Nigeria. When the chips are down, even these outsiders with malice posing as friends to entice some hapless citizens, shall certainly abandon them to their own cruel fate with other Nigerians.
We also encourage the nation’s security agencies to do more in order to stem the spate of kidnappings in the nation. They should apply more inter-agency intelligence sharing, and also network effectively in order to respond quickly to threats and to intervene at potential flashpoints. The Federal Government must endeavour to create jobs for our teeming youth population in order to dissuade them from crime; and it should also instill confidence in the expatriates working in our shores by showing more sincerity and diligence in its fight against terrorism. Our great party believes that Nigeria shall surmount all its present troubles.
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Signed:
Hon Emma Eneukwu
National Publicity Secretary
ANPP
21-02-13
