Human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), says the Kaduna State Government and the Federal Government should stop confront insecurity headlong rather than wailing about such a national challenge.
He said both the Kaduna and the Federal governments should take full responsibility of securing the lives of all citizens.
Falana, who is the interim chairman, Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond, stated this in a statement on Sunday titled, ‘Governments Must Rescue All Abducted Students.
He expressed sympathy with the families 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.
Falana said both the Federal Government and the Kaduna State Government, in their usual characteristic, had perfunctorily condemned the reckless killing of the students, an action which was not enough.
The ASCAB chairman said the government must take urgent steps to rescue the remaining students of the Greenfield University and other abducted students who are currently captives of bandits and terrorists, including the Chibok and Dapchi girls.
The group’s statement partly read, “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.”
Falana noted that 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.
He said 14 million out-of-school children should be taken away 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.
The ASCAB boss 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.
Falana urged the organised labour to resist the mass sacking of workers, which could fuel insecurity in Kaduna State.
