It was one of the states hit recently by killings. Many believed President Muhammadu Buhari would seize the opportunity offered by the visit to voice government’s concern and allay people’s fears. They were disappointed.

Buhari yesterday commissioned 10 coaches and two locomotives and the Kaduna Inland Dry Port.

Parts of the country witnessed bloodshed over the past week. While 21 people were killed in Rivers State, about 50 others died in attacks by herdsmen in Benue. In Kaduna, a traditional ruler, Dr. Gambo Makama, and his wife were murdered in Sanga Local Government Area. The President, however, left the state without saying a word on any of the incidents.

On Tuesday, a group, Centrum Initiative for Development and Fundamental Rights Advocacy (CEDRA), had issued a statement envisaging the outcome of the visit.

“It has come to our knowledge that Buhari will be in Kaduna on Thursday January 4, 2018 to commission a dry port and a few railway coaches. Aside from the niceties of tape-cutting at designated sites and a few remarks, President Buhari’s itinerary is quiet on his other activities while in Kaduna.

“A similar scenario unfolded on September 12, 2017 when he visited the state for the commissioning of a feeds milling plant called OLAM, along Kaduna-Abuja Road. The President left after fulfilling the righteousness of tape-cutting. We guess his Thursday January 4, 2018 visit will ply the same lane. This is not the first time President Buhari is showcasing a lackadaisical and I-don’t-care attitude to the barbaric annihilations of the people of Southern Kaduna,” said CEDRA chairman, Dr. John Danfulani.

Disappointed, the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) yesterday passed a vote of no confidence in the president, and the state governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, over their handling of attacks.

The group said the prolonged insecurity in the southern part of Kaduna State and the failure to arrest the perpetrators prove that government’s intelligence gathering mechanism has failed.

In a statement by its National Public Relations Officer, Mr. Yakubu Kuzamani, SOKAPU said: “With so much sadness and concern, the Southern Kaduna Peoples’ Union is constrained again to point out to the general public that the ominous signs coming out from the renewed attacks on our people, which has shattered the relative peace we have been enjoying, calls for serious concern.”

The group said it was wondering “why the government continues to adopt the same strategy to security in Southern Kaduna when such has not translated into stopping these attacks and killings.”

It noted that the failure of the authorities to arrest the perpetrators “has emboldened these terrorists to keep attacking and killing at will, while the government is left to issue flowery press statements after each attack and deploy security to already destroyed communities.

“In view of all these killings of our people, SOKAPU is urging the government to show more determination, willingness and sincerity and be more proactive in curbing these killings.

“We urge government to increase the space for more meaningful engagement in searching for more viable deterrents to these killings. We also urge the security personnel to increase their intelligence gathering and go after these terrorists, rather than wait for them to attack.”

•Excerpted from a Guardian report.

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