Press Release
The Guild
of Public Affairs Analysts of Nigeria received, with horror and utter
disgust, the gory news of the invasion of a train of Nigeria Railway
Corporation on its way from Abuja to Kaduna by a horde from hell on 28th March
2022.
We have waited this long to make a statement
because we had hoped that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari and the
heads of the security agencies would have resolved the problem so we could have
a positive statement to make. But alas!
Terrorists rigged explosives on the rail track, to cause the train to hobble to an unscheduled stop in a most unlikely place in the bush. As soon as the trip was disrupted the killers boarded the disabled coaches, shooting sporadically.
At the end of the dastardly invasion, at least
eight innocent souls, including that of 29-year old Dr. Chinelo Megafu, who
managed to send a tweet asking for prayers, had died. Also, Alhaji Alwan
Hassan, acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria's Bank of Agriculture
is reported to be one of the abductees, while Musa-Lawal Ozigi, Secretary
General of Trade Union Congress, is reported dead.
An undisclosed number ended up in hospitals, with 26 confirmed injured, 186 confirmed safe, and an unknown number abducted by the terrorists. Indeed, no one, not even Nigeria Railway Corporation, is able to confidently provide the number of passengers on that train. After one week the Nigeria Railway Corporation was able to issue a terse statement that about 168 passengers are still unaccounted for.
*GPAAN President, Mr. Ayo Oyoze Baje, speaking at a GPAAN Event
Rumours suggest that the number of passengers on
that train are somewhere between the acknowledged 362 names shown on the trip
manifest and the 970 capacity of the train. This is another way of saying that
the ubiquitous Nigerian factor, harbinger of manifest corruption, has reared
its head in the mix; that some passengers, whose fares may not have been
accounted for and paid into the coffers of Nigeria Railway Corporation, may
have paid into private pockets!
Yet just two days after the disaster another train
trip, this time, from Kano to Lagos was waylaid. This time, the train driver
was shut and killed. The irony to all this is that Minister of Information and
Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had hardly concluded a press conference, in which
he boasted that rail trips are a safe way to travel in Nigeria.
He indeed unwittingly indicated that the railways
were safer than travels by road and air. He even replied to former President
Olusegun Obasanjo that the Buhari Administration was not overwhelmed by the
pervasive insecurity in the nation.
Recall that one week before the invasion of the
Abuja-Kaduna rail line another horde from hell made a run on the runway of
Kaduna International Airport, maybe to show the government and people of Nigeria
that nowhere, not even international airports, are safe in Nigeria.
What should baffle anyone is that a Federal
Government, led by a retired Major General, who had promised security to the
Nigerian electorate during his electioneering campaigns in 2015, appears
totally clueless in the face of a series of carnage and insecurity in the
nation.
Things have gotten so bad and scary that an
understandably frustrated Governor Nasir el Rufai of Kaduna State, the state
that has received the most violence in recent times, announced, right within
the portals of Aso Rock Villa, official residence of the President, that he was
considering engaging foreign security contractors, otherwise known as
mercenaries, to flush out the terrorist out of Kaduna State.
The curious thing is that neither the seemingly
absentminded President nor the amorphous Presidency seems to know what to say
or do. There is a deafening silence from an apparently embarrassed government.
The Guild of Public Affairs Analysts of Nigeria
finds both the killings and abductions and government's appearance of
helplessness both regrettable and unacceptable.
The President and Commanderil-in-Chief of
Nigeria's Armed Forces and all his service chiefs must wake up and justify
their appointments to the people of Nigeria and make good their oaths to
safeguard Nigeria. They must comprehensively address what seems to be the
problem.
If they cannot or are unwilling to do so, they
will be doing the Nigerian people a world of good by turning in their
resignation papers. That will be the most honourable thing to do.
May the good Lord deliver Nigerians from the
clutch of the danger that is holding them so tightly.
Ayo
Oyoze Baje,
President,
Guild of Public Affairs Analysts of Nigeria
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