Concern mounts over Nigeria’s escalating security crisis

Concern mounts over Nigeria’s escalating security crisis

By Tasie Theodore

Concern is mounting over Nigeria’s escalating security crisis, with many wondering whether the Muhammadu Buhari administration is doing enough to frankly get to the root of the matter and contain it.

‘We are quite troubled. When young people take to the streets to very peacefully express their opinions on the need for more humane policing, the security agencies rain thunder at them, but the real criminals are going about almost virtually unchallenged on the highways and forests. What exactly is going on here, one youth activist lamented.

The latest incident has been one in which gunmen invaded the Government Science College, Kagara in Niger State, making away with over three dozen students, teachers and parents.

Security analysts say the nation may not have had it this bad since about the end of the civil war. Speaking in a television programme earlier in the week, presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu admitted the severity of the situation, saying that it had indeed forced the administration to deploy soldiers to 34 of the country’s states and the Federal Capital Territory. On his part, the General who physically launched the current democratic experiment in 1999, former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, equally let out on Tuesday that at the rate things were sliding, the nation’s ability to continue to hold together was indeed becoming very heavily threatened.

President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria