By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Yoruba socio-cultural organization, Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to expedite actions to initiate a legal process that will empower governors of states “to acquire superior assault weapons to confront bandits, terrorists and unknown gunmen currently unleashing death and terror across the country”.
This, it believes, will assist the governors in performing their roles as chief security officers of their states, even as the federal police have been weighed down by the escalating security concerns nationwide.
The OPC also urged the president to ensure the quick release of citizens held captives across the country by Boko Haram extremists, bandits or other criminal elements terrorising the country.
The group in a statement on Monday in reaction to the release of the 23 remaining train passengers kidnapped in Kaduna eight months ago, praised President Buhari while tasking him to deploy same template in securing freedom for all captives held by criminal elements nationwide.
“The urgent need for the Federal Government to expedite action to free other abductees still in captivity anywhere in the country” the Congress President, Otunba Wasiu Afolabi said in a statement on Monday in Lagos signed by the the General Secretary, Comrade Bunmi Fasehun.
“Granting licences for states to acquire superior weapons that that would enable them counter terrorists, bandits and unknown gunmen, in line with the request by Ondo State’s Governor Rotimi Akeredolu and others,” the OPC said.
The congress also called on the president to revisit and implementing the resolutions of the National Conference of 2014 before handing over power in 2023.
“OPC Founder, the late Dr. Frederick Fasehun, and others spent several years clamouring for a Sovereign National Conference, which President Goodluck Jonathan partly granted.
“Resolutions contained in the 2014 National Conference document must be revisited and implemented by President Muhammadu Buhari before he hands over power. That is the only way to silence the calls for the disintegration of Nigeria. Without coexisting on discussed and agreed terms, Nigeria will continue to stumble from crisis to crisis,” the statement added.
Thousands of Nigerians are estimated to be held as abductees especially in the northern region of the country where Al-Qaeda-linked Boko Haram had since 2008 kidnapped many, particularly school children in advancement of its anti-western education campaign.
Over 200 school children were taken in 2014 by the terror group from their secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, most of whom are still held in captivity. Several other citizens have been unaccounted for, for years in a country fighting aggressive extremist ideology seeking to impose Sharia law, secessionist campaign and other pockets of insecurity.
