The Arewa Consultative Forum and the Coalition of Northern Groups have condemned the viral video of terrorists flogging hostages on the AK-9 Abuja-Kaduna train, urging the Federal Government to recognise its responsibility to protect Nigerians.
While expressing regret for the incident, the ACF’s Secretary-General, Malam Murtala Aliyu, described the flogging of the hostages as “nasty.”
The ACF urged the government to accept responsibility for saving the abductees’ and other Nigerians’ lives.
In response to the incident, Murtala stated, “the issue of flogging or threatening by terrorists was quite unfortunate.” We have made statements on this before and we are not going to say anything different.
“The government must be pragmatic in saving the lives of and welfare of Nigerians as well as protecting them. It is the responsibility of government to act quickly on this.
“It’s becoming nasty and we believe government still have the responsibility on the lives of these citizens. There’s nothing new that we can say apart from the fact that it’s unfortunate.”
Meanwhile, the CNG, a coalition of over 50 groups in the region, urged Nigerians to rise up and defend themselves in the apparent failure of the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to protect them.
The Spokesman of the CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, noted with regrets that terrorists were now exploiting on the failure of the government to torment Nigerians.
He expressed concern over the trending video of the terrorists flogging the hostages, describing it as “disturbing,” adding that the government had continued to live in self denial.
Abdul’aziz, while reacting to the incident with one of our correspondents in Kaduna on Sunday, said, “Conclusively, in the face of the latest development, Nigerians would be right to resort to self-protection because obviously, the bandits and insurgents have sensed a huge vacuum in the capacity and political will to challenge them.
“It is this vacuum the criminals exploit with ease and at will while government, which is supposed to be the first responder, appears to be either living in perpetual denial or totally ignorant of the reality of the situation.
“We have viewed the video clip and assessed the contents and find it disturbing to realise that Nigeria has final come to terms with the reality that it has completely lost control of its forests, land borders, highways and to some extent, the airways and seas to insane bandits and insurgents in the North, deadly armed separatist armies in the East, pirates and other assortments of criminal gangs in the far South and the West.
“The audacious violence shown in the video released by the terrorists and the open threats to abduct the President and sitting governor prove the extent to which the country has lost out to the bandits.
“Having come this far, we’re no longer in doubt that the only remaining option is the hard way that involves communities apparently abandoned to the mercy of deadly insurgents and sundry criminals must immediately mobilise to protect themselves, their homes and their families.
“No people would tolerate to continue to live under such conditions while being led by a government that appears to run from threats and incapable and lacking in the political will to challenge the threats.
“Whether anybody wants to admit it or not, the current administration has failed in the vital area of providing security of life and property to its citizens.
“All the signs of imminent failure or perhaps complete failure of state have manifested in Nigeria as its government has failed to maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders.
“With the current dominant presence of warlords, paramilitary groups, corrupt policing, armed gangs, terrorism, and a messed up security apparatus of the country, the very existence of the state has been rendered dubious, and the Nigerian state is by all indicators appearing like a failed state.”