UK condemns killing of kidnap victims in Zamfara

The United Kingdom government on Tuesday condemned the killing of 33 kidnap victims by bandits in Banga town, Kaura Namoda Local Government Area of Zamfara, describing it as an “unspeakable crime.”

The victims were murdered on Sunday despite the payment of an N50 million ransom.

The attackers had earlier abducted over 50 residents from the community and later released 17 hostages, mostly women, after receiving the ransom.

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Speaking during the launch of the State Expansion Programme for the Anti-Kidnap Fusion Cell, an initiative of the National Counter Terrorism Centre in collaboration with the UK government, the UK Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Gill Lever, extended her condolences to the people of Zamfara.

According to her, “I want to express my condolences to the people of Zamfara, that horrible kidnapping where even when ransom was paid, only a few people were released and the others were murdered.

“It’s an unspeakable crime that has impacts on society, on communities, on families. It damages people’s mental and physical well-being, retards economic progress and all the other things that we know well. And we must bring an end to this.”

She stressed the need for collective efforts to curb the menace of kidnapping in Nigeria.

According to her, “We must stop this. We must limit this. Because we all feel passionately and keenly about the terrible impacts of kidnapping.

“So, my condolences to the people of that state and to the affected people and to their families and their friends. This is what we want to try and stop.”

She said that the multi-agency Kidnap Fusion Cell has been a three-year initiative to create a collaborative response from Nigeria’s security forces to tackle the threat of kidnap across the country.

According to Levers, the Multi-Agency Fusion Cell’s role was to support the Nigeria Police and Department of State Service kidnap response units nationwide by collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data to the Office of the National Security Adviser, as well as providing trend-based information on kidnapping incidents by state.

According to her, “The Multi-Agency Fusion Cell and the training that’s going on this week comes out of a deep partnership that the United Kingdom and Nigeria have, called our Security and Defence Partnership.

“It’s part of our overall strategic partnership, signed by our foreign ministers last year, and a partnership that’s based on mutual trust and mutual respect and mutual support. In the work that the UK Crime Agency has been doing with NCTC and the Nigerian Police and other stakeholders, very much grounded in those key principles and wanting to formulate a model that is for Nigeria, not the UK imposing its idea of what a kidnap fusion centre should look like, but something that you as the experts, you as the people that experience the reality of kidnaps, want and need and that speaks to your needs.

“We met at a Security and Defence Partnership meeting over a few days in London a couple of weeks ago, and this step of rolling out the Multi-Agency Fusion Cell capability to states was something we agreed on.

“So this week sees the next phase of collaboration. So Nigerian Police and DSS kidnap commanders from every state here in Abuja attending what we call the state expansion programme. And this will synergise the Multi-Agency Fusion and the state response teams to produce a joint effect greater than their individual entities.”