The Nigeria Leadership Forum (NLF), a platform of Nigerians of distinguished professions and careers, has expressed concern over growing insecurity in the country.

In a statement issued on Monday in London, the group called on President Muhammadu Buhari to rise to the challenge and use every constitutional means to bring the deplorable security situation under control.

It pointed out that “Nigerians await the arrest and judicial prosecution of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against Nigerian people.

“These crimes include but not limited to: The killings in the North East by Boko Haram; the gruesome destruction of nearly entire communities in Benue, Enugu, Delta, Southern Kaduna and Adamawa credited to Fulani Herdsmen; the extra judicial killings by agents of the government in the South-East and South-South; Kidnappings of Entrepreneurs, women, innocent children and teachers from schools and homes in many parts of the country and particularly Lagos; as well as the fact that highways in the country have become safe havens for kidnappers especially Kogi, Ekiti, Edo, Abia and Akwa Ibom, etc.”

The group also frowned at the fact that militancy in the Niger Delta and armed groups are growing by the day.

It also expressed concern over the proliferation of light and assault weapons that have become so easily accessible from unknown sources, making the threat levels in the entire country so high while security is now at its lowest in the history of Nigeria.

“Not even at war time did we experience such records of killings. The social media brings to our telephone screens very traumatic scenes and images of human slaughters and executions as never before.

“The NLF therefore, with a deep sense of commitment and responsibilities wish to state our concern on the above subject.

“Nigeria is a multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural and multi-religious country founded on mutual compromise and on the aspiration for unity, peace and progress.

“We consider these differences as a source of strength while recognising the challenges posed by its management. We call on all people in positions of power or authority to act on time and save the nation from a looming total collapse of law and order.

“This tripod defines the common interests of all Nigerians irrespective of class, creed or religion.

Going by the recent security development and critical decline in the efforts of the institutions established to manage the above mentioned objectives we wish to particularly call upon all those who have sworn under oath to harness and deploy the human and material resources of Nigeria to rise to duty.

“Those with the mandate to guarantee the safety of lives and properties should justify the taxpayers’ money deployed to contain these lawlessness and save further collapse of the Nigerian State.

“State governors must also accept and address the deplorable security situation including evolving effective intelligence and information gathering and sharing mechanism to help contain this menace.

“It is our firm belief that all Nigerians and indeed elders and patriots are seriously concerned and therefore call on the various government organs to give good account of their existence. These wastes of precious lives across the North, South, East and West under whatever guise must be thoroughly investigated and stopped. The actual perpetrators and sponsors must be fished out by the security agencies, brought to justice as the proof of their competence and justification of the sacred trust, confidence and resources entrusted to them by Nigerians.

“We wish to put on record that our security agencies are not only poorly equipped and remuneration very inadequate, the intellectual content of their trainings are poor and incapable of delivering on the task of protecting the nation. This informs why such are so easily infiltrated by elements and manipulated against the duties assigned to them by the constitution.

“NLF would be willing to provide some support to communities or states in the search and quest for peace and stability.”

The statement further explained that NLF is a group of Academics, Business People, Professionals and Technocrats based across the world seeking progress, peace and development strategically in Nigeria, Africa and within the Africa’s Diaspora Communities.

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