Prominent civil rights advocacy think-tank, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the service chiefs to look inwards for solution to the resurgence of insurgency “because the Federal Government has concealed the identities of key sponsors of terrorists and the heads of the military institutions have collectively accepted to live with the reality that they can’t uproot internal moles and saboteurs who are in these military forces but collaborating, conspiring and working actively with terrorism masterminds.”

“The President is lackadaisical about the issues of insecurity and the frightening dimensions that terrorists have carved franchise and sophisticated and well organised criminal networks of kidnappings and have infiltrated the Federal Capital Territory because the president, his cabinet members, legislators at the national Assembly are protected round the clock at public costs by Brigades of Guards and by some of the elite and vastly trained, equipped and motivated fighting force within the military and police.

“And because of the perceived invincibility of these political elites within the corridors of power, the security and wellbeing of everyone else known as commoners does not count as a priority subject of interest to Mr. President, hence the seeming overruling of Abuja by terrorists masquerading as kidnappers for ransom payments. Mr. President needs to feel the apprehensions, the pains and pangs and the unending anxieties of the hoi poloi and then do the needful because if this heightened state of insecurity continues, the political office holders will lose legitimacy and chaos and anarchy would be let loose and the entire country will be like a wasteland because everyone is looking his or her own security because the government has lost the monopoly of organised, legitimised violence.”

“A former communications minister under the immediate past infamous and corruption-ridden administration of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, has just told us that the simple reason the military and police can’t catch kidnappers is because the security chiefs have refused to use the national identity numbers of every phone users that have been synchronised with their banking transactions. So the question to ask President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is why the heads of security institutions are yet to use these technology that Nigeria spent so much of public funds to set up the telecommunications architecture which links every users of telephone services and bank users, yet kidnappers are left to run riots across the length and breadth of Nigeria unperturbed.

“Mr. President Sir, it is because either that these kidnappers have internal moles at the highest echelons of the security institutions and therefore they are sharing pro-rata the revenues generated from this evil franchise of kidnappings or it is the case that the Federal Government’s refusal to disclose the identities of the sponsors of terrorists in Nigeria is symptomatic of the sympathetic outlooks of the government towards terrorists. There are no other way of looking at it since the government has accepted to tolerate the sheer incompetence of all the heads of security institutions who have so far failed spectacularly to rein in terrorists but are feasting on Media propaganda to hoodwink Nigerians to believe that they are winning the war on terror.”

HURIWA recalled that the President Tinubu-led Federal Government has said it will not name and shame identified financiers of terrorism in the country which the Rights group pointed to as a clear sign of a government being sympathetic to terrorists.

Specifically, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), who disclosed that the government will conceal identities of sponsors of terrorists in an interview on the sidelines of the 27^th Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) Ministerial Committee Meeting in Abuja, had earlier stated that the Federal Government has identified terrorism financiers in the country.

Also, HURIWA recalled that a former Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, says failure to utilise the NIN-SIM policy has encouraged criminality especially, kidnapping, in the country.

Mr Pantami said this while replying to a quote from an X user named Mentus, who questioned why Nigerians queued up for months to secure the National Identification Number (NIN), which would later be futile in fighting crimes.

In a statement the rights group which reiterated her call for liberalization of licences to carry military grade weapons by civilians in Nigeria to wade off the resurgence of insurgency and terrorism, said the President of Nigeria is very comfortable with keeping security officials who are applying same old worn out strategies to fight terrorists but are not prepared to adopt technology and innovative strategies towards nipping in the bud these threats by terrorists against Nigerians and the federal capital Territory specifically, in the bud.

HURIWA which condemns all acts of terrorism and kidnappings and has suggested the introduction of a national uniform death penalty for these sets of terrorists, also lamented that gunmen suspected to be terrorists had ransacked a military camp in Nahuta village in Batsari Local Government Area of Katsina State, forcing residents to flee the area after a fierce gun battle between both parties.

The rampaging suspected terrorists, armed with sophisticated weapons, attacked the joint military camp on Sunday night riding on motorcycles.

Several attempts to confirm the incident from military authorities in Katsina and the state police command were futile in what HURIWA say is a deliberate plot to conceal the increasing attacks by terrorists.

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