The Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Ireti Kingibe, has deplored the worsening security situation in Abuja, the nation’s capital, saying it is as if the nation’s security agencies have gone to sleep.
Senator Kingibe, who was reacting to the killing of Nabeeha Al-Kadriya, a 400-level Biological Sciences student at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria by kidnappers, said the rate and ease with which criminals abduct and kill innocent Nigerians in the FCT is not only unacceptable but also embarrassing.
She lamented that slain Nabeeha, her father, Mr. Mansoor Al-Kadriya and her five sisters were kidnapped in Zuma town in Bwari, Abuja, on January 2, 2024, but her father was freed to enable him raise the N60m demanded by the kidnappers.
“A few days ago, however, Nabeeha, the second daughter of Al-Kadriya, was murdered by her captors and the ransom demand increased to N100m,” Kingibe said in a statement on Tuesday night signed by her Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Nana Kazaure.
She said that the murder of Nabeeha and that of many others killed in similar situations, was a blight on the national conscience and a slap on the face of government, whose primary responsibility is to secure lives and property.
“It is as if our security agencies have gone to sleep. It surely beggars belief that this should be happening in the Federal Capital and is clearly unacceptable to me and Nigerians in general. The reality we face today is that residents of the FCT, who by virtue of their residing within the seat of power, and who by this fact should naturally be the envy of other Nigerians by enjoying the extra security their proximity to power should provide, have become most harassed and traumatized by unfettered reign of terror imposed on their communities by criminals.
“Nigerians will recall that in my New Year message, I noted that a key area of priority for me is the safety of residents of the FCT. I restate that position here and insist that our security operatives pull their socks up and check the rising spate of criminal activities, which have cast a pall of gloom, fear and anxiety over the lives of residents of the FCT,” Kingibe said.
Commiserating with the Al-Kadriyas on the murder of Nabeeha, she called on security operatives to work diligently and speedily to free the siblings and others currently in captivity.
She also urged the Federal Government to declare state of emergency on insecurity across the country.