After my column two months ago, “Tudun Biri: Ribadu’s first test,” a reader asked why I directed the piece at the National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, rather than the Chief of Army Staff or his boss, the Chief of Defence Staff.
I’d responded that the National Security Adviser has the president’s ear. He is the one person any president, anywhere in the world, cannot afford to ignore.
So, if one wants to send an urgent message to a country’s president, especially one bordering on the nation’s security, that nation’s NSA is one’s best bet.
It is no exaggeration to say that Nabeeha’s death has elicited a nationwide sense of grief. Another young life does not need to be wasted at the altar of bloodthirsty and heartless demons who call themselves kidnappers.
And the fact that she was singled out, from among her siblings, to be made “the example” by those murderers made her killing all the more painful. The siblings couldn’t help but look on, and she couldn’t help herself.
The discovery that another young lady, also a female student of ABU Zaria, known as Folorunsho Ariyo, was one of the other three dead bodies further compounded our grief.
The loss of a young person is always painful because it is believed they have their whole lives ahead of them.
But the pain is always doubled when the death comes as tragically as it did in the case of these two students.
The questions on people’s lips are: will the ransom be paid on time to save Nabeeha’s sisters and other captives? Will the kidnappers get caught in the process so that they’ll be made to face the law? And how can such brazen criminality be stopped so that the tragic loss of innocent lives can also be stopped?
In my humble opinion, the solution lies in this government declaring a state of emergency on security in the country.
The National Security Adviser must make sure that the president understands why everything else must be suspended until peace and security are attained.
About two years ago, when we had an interactive session with the former Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, most of us at the media event asked questions related solely to the issue of insecurity.
I remember asking why it was becoming hard to trace phone calls coming from kidnappers demanding ransom, when almost a decade ago we were told that Kabiru Sokoto, the so-called mastermind of Madalla Church bombing, was caught through tracking his calls to a guest house in Maitama District of Abuja.
Incidentally, a few days to that media event, Daily Trust had reported that the police phone tracker had been down for several months, needing repairs.
In response to my question, the Defence Chief said the nation’s armed forces were being equipped with the latest technologies to help them combat crime, not just phone trackers. But he added that a public forum like the one we were in was not the place to name the various technologies our armed forces plan to deploy to fight insecurity.
That was the day I learnt that not only the police but all other branches of our armed forces have phone trackers in their arsenal.
Yet murderous kidnappers will be calling victims’ families with the same number and still not be traced. What happened to this advanced technology?
How can something work advantageously in the days of President Jonathan and fail to work during the administration of PMB right down to the present?
I mean the police said they caught Kabiru Sokoto, didn’t they? Why are the present terror merchants so hard to trace?
No doubt about it, we need a more concerted and single-minded effort towards ending the criminal insecurity bedevilling this country.
A state of emergency in the security sector means all hands will be on deck towards making sure that kidnapping, banditry and insurgency are brought to a halt.
No criminal should feel safe enough to call victim’s families and make demands or make deadly threats, should their demands not be met.
This can be achieved if our politicians realise that it is not a huge entourage gracing every international jamboree that attracts investors to a country, it is the sense of safety and security that does.
So, I’m appealing to our NSA to stress this point with Mr President. As the head of the EFCC over 20 years ago, Malam Ribadu showed what he was capable of when he chased corrupt politicians and even took some to justice.
He can do it again when he insists on a state of emergency and makes sure that the government commits to it.
We must never again lose young promising souls like Nabeeha and Folorunsho to the murderous criminal gangs that kidnapped them.
But this can only be achieved when people like Nuhu Ribadu pass this second test and prove their mettle.
