Human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has asked Kaduna and the Federal Government to stop wailing about security challenges but take full responsibility.
Falana, who is the interim chairman, Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond, said this in a statement on Sunday titled, ‘Governments Must Rescue All Abducted Students.
The activist sympathised with the relatives of the students who were murdered by one of the several gangs of bandits operating without any serious challenge in many states in the North-West zone.
The ASCAB chairman said as usual, both the Federal Government and the Kaduna State Government had perfunctorily condemned the reckless killing of the students but the official condemnation is not enough.
Falana said the government must take urgent steps to rescue the remaining students of the Greenfield University and other abducted students who are currently languishing in the illegal custody of bandits and terrorists, including the Chibok and Dapchi girls.
The statement read in part, “Instead of only engaging in occasional expression of sympathy with families of abducted victims who are often killed by bandits and terrorists, the Federal Government and the various state governments should acquire vital security gadgets to track criminal gangs that are terrorising unarmed citizens.
“Since the Federal and Kaduna State Governments should bear full responsibility for the barbaric murder of the unarmed undergraduates and other citizens by criminal elements official wailing is no longer acceptable.
“In view of the worsening insecurity in the country we are compelled to call on the Nigerian people to mount pressure on the governments to secure the life and property of every person in Nigeria.”
The activist said the increasing wave of youth unemployment and mass poverty are at the root of the uncontrollable insecurity and should be frontally addressed by the government.
The ASCAB chairman said 14 million out-of-school children should be removed from the streets and enrolled in schools without any further delay.
“At the same time, a programme of employment or unemployment allowance should be instituted. All fraudulently privatised enterprises should be reversed as recommended by the Senate Committee headed by Senator Ahmed Lawan (now Senate President) in 2011,” Falana said.
He recommended that the N75bn earmarked for youth investment funds should be increased sufficiently to combat youth unemployment in the country, adding that the state universities that have embarked on the proliferation of tertiary institutions should equally invest in youth employment.
The ASCAB chairman called on the organised labour to resist the mass sacking of workers which could fuel insecurity in Kaduna State.
