A coalition of more than 40 civil society groups has petitioned Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, calling on him to address chronic insecurity that has only gotten worse since he assumed office last May. The petition follows a series of kidnappings in the capital, Abuja, and southwestern Ekiti state.
According to a report this week by the civil society coalition, at least 2,400 people have been killed and close to 1,900 others kidnapped since May last year when Tinubu assumed office.
The coalition said it was deeply concerned about the deteriorating security across Nigeria and called on authorities to take "actionable steps" to fix the problem.
Auwal Rafsanjani, executive director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Center, spoke on behalf of the coalition.
"Our country is under siege, our country has been taken over by criminals, pampered terrorists, pampered bandits and pampered political criminals, and Nigerians are being killed like ants,” he said. “Every day you wake up, its one killing after another, we cannot continue this way."
The report comes amid a wave of violent attacks in the country, including Abuja.
There, armed gangs have carried out brazen kidnap-for-ransom attacks in recent weeks. Two people from different families were killed as a warning to those who don’t pay.
In southwestern Ekiti state, armed men recently kidnapped six school students and three teachers. On the same day, gunmen attacked local communities in the state and killed two traditional rulers.
Tinubu condemned the attacks and ordered security forces to capture the perpetrators.
But security analyst Chidi Omeje says government failure is the reason for the persistent problem.
"The root cause of all these things is bad governance, bad governance that engenders poverty, beings about frustration, anger in the people,” he said. “See, there's this correlation between poverty, bad governance and [a] spike in criminality. There has to be multi-dimensional approach to it and, of course, it has to be intelligence driven."
Last year, Tinubu vowed to fix Nigeria's security problems if elected president.
After taking office, Tinubu retired several service chiefs and appointed new ones. Critics say that isn’t enough.
On Tuesday, members of the National Assembly the service chiefs to discuss the state of security in the country.
