The Edo train kidnapping

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ON Saturday January 7, some 20 passengers were abducted at the train station in Igueben local government area of Edo State. The passengers were waiting to board a train to Warri, Delta State, when the armed men struck. A few days later, seven of the victims were set free. Another 12 were subsequently released. We hope that the remaining two passengers who are reported to be staffers of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) will soon regain their freedom.

We are concerned that the kidnap of railway passengers happened again after the Kaduna-Abuja tragedy of last year. The Kaduna-Abuja train tragedy was traumatic for citizens, especially when the victims wallowed in captivity for months. During the period, the government showed very limited capacity to intervene, and the families of the victims helplessly waited on the government without any assurance, until almost six months later when the last victim regained freedom. The Igueben case is clear evidence that kidnappers and bandits act with impunity within the Nigerian space, as if there is no government. The security agents and the facilities at the train stations do not seem to be up to the task of keeping the stations safe. We would have expected the government to have learnt lessons from the Kaduna-Abuja incident and applied such lessons to other train services across the country. This show of neglect suggests that the current government is not to be taken seriously in terms of performing the basic functions and responsibilities of government, especially that of providing security within its territory.

How can Nigerians feel safe anywhere within the Nigerian territory when the government has failed to keep the promise it made after the almost six-month-long debacle of the Abuja-Kaduna incident, namely that it would not allow such to recur anywhere in the country? What has happened to the security measures for railway stations that it earlier announced to tackle the menace? If Nigerians cannot trust their own government, who should they trust? The Federal Government needs to urgently address the security lacuna in the train stations. It must reconsider the decentralisation of policing to the lower tiers of government and exploit the existing network of local vigilantes to improve security and safety. The response of the Edo State government through the deployment of local vigilante groups to various parts of the state had hugely helped in securing the release of some of the victims. That points to the important contributions that decentralised policing can bring to bear in reducing the incidence of violent crimes across the country.

The security issues would not have reached this magnitude if a security architecture had been integrated into the plan of the rail system, a project that the government borrowed humongous sums to execute. The construction of the rail system occurred side by side with the emergence of terrorism and increased cases of banditry. It is a shame that many people who originally opted for rail travel for safety reasons have been disappointed. Nigerians continue to experience deep-seated insecurity across all facets life. Things have become traumatic for them. They now live in a state of permanent fear. Gruesome crimes of murder, ritual killings, kidnapping for ransom and terrorism have become daily occurrences. The regular response from the government has always been the release of statements condemning the crimes as if such statements can arrest the slide into total insecurity. Indeed, the statements no longer carry any element of reassurance, if at all they ever did.

Evidently, even in the few months left for the present government in office, it is difficult to trust it to urgently act to ensure that bandits and kidnappers do not routinely unleash mayhem on citizens. Nonetheless, we call on it to take extraordinary measures to arrest the current situation. The idea of pretending to be in pursuit of kidnappers while they keep hapless Nigerians in captivity for months within the Nigerian territory is callous. That is just not how a government functions.

We are happy that the government has been able to secure the release of most of the victims in this case. We hope that this is an indication that it can re-establish and redeem itself by demonstrating a capacity to preempt and prevent incidents of kidnapping and banditry in the train system and around the country.

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