Column No.6: Readers try to make sense of needless senselessness

My piece last week was quite popular with readers who felt strongly enough about the topic to write in. Usually, opinions on topics are divided, but the issue of the Abuja-Kaduna train attack had comments perfectly aligned in their outrage, their fire, and in their heartbreak. I’m not one to be an echo chamber for […]

My piece last week was quite popular with readers who felt strongly enough about the topic to write in. Usually, opinions on topics are divided, but the issue of the Abuja-Kaduna train attack had comments perfectly aligned in their outrage, their fire, and in their heartbreak. I’m not one to be an echo chamber for social media, due to the precarious nature of sharing unverified info. But there’s no way I won’t mention the photo I saw on a Whatsapp group today, of three youngsters, two male and one female, all probably in their late teens. The gut-wrenching caption announced, of course with pain, that the terrorists who kidnapped them off the derailed train asked for five million naira for each of them, but eventually said only a total of 10 should be sent, with the ‘balance’ of five million serving as dowry for the teenage girl. If this is true, my heart goes out to her family. If this is true, then it’s yet another reminder that the Federal Government has failed her, and all of us other Nigerians. Not that anyone of us ever forgot. It was quite a difficult thing to do picking the reader responses you are about to read. I hope I’ve picked the strongest ones, which is just as well, because for the first time in a long time, I don’t have anything to say. – Abdulkareem

The train has always been a ‘sitting duck’

Like you, I have always been wary of the Abuja-Kaduna train service. I have always visualised a situation where the so-called bandits would bomb the tracks and do exactly what they did. I’m sure hundreds of thousands if not millions of other Nigerians imagined just as much, too. But funny enough, no one in government, railway management or security circles thought of it. Not enough to do anything, anyways. Yes, Amaechi may have tried to install a security system of some sort and failed, but even that wouldn’t have been enough. These hell-spawned creatures we call bandits need to be taken care of once and for all, wiped off the face of the earth. Except if the conspiracy theories aren’t conspiracy theories.

• Police neutralise bandit, recover 50 rustled cows in Katsina
• JUST IN: Saudi lifts COVID-19 restriction after two years, says one million Muslims to perform 2022 hajj

Yemi Balogun-Ahmed, Kaduna.

Dear FG, it could have been any one of you 

I looked through the manifest that was released of the ill-fated Abuja-Kaduna train ride in a bid to be sure no one I know is on it, but what I found instead was the whole of Nigeria represented on that journey into darkness. All the limp statements by the Federal Government, as well as well-photographed and cosmetic visits by the leadership of security agencies serve nothing. What we need to see now is action, because we are under siege. And by ‘we’ I mean all of us, regular folks and even non-regular folks like the movers and shakers of Abuja. Looking at those names, it could have been any one of you government officials or your family members that have been killed, kidnapped or worse. I would have said you should think about it, and let it sink in, but I know it won’t be done. Allah will judge.

Maimuna Suleiman, Garki, Abuja.

What the heck are we even doing about the victims?

For some reason that I don’t yet understand, and while I don’t know a single victim directly, I know many people who have friends and relatives who have either been killed or kidnapped in the shocking Kaduna-Abuja train attack. All their stories have become my stories, and all their pain has become mine. What I want to know is what has been done apart from the paying of hospital bills for survivors and frilly visits to hospital wards, and the ensuing photo ops? Does President Buhari have any intention of addressing the nation properly on national TV about this national tragedy and national disgrace?

Peter Maiyaki, Kafanchan, Kaduna.

When will we admit that we’re dealing with terrorists?

It is with a lot of anger that I still see the terrorists who assaulted our collective national senses with the Abuja-Kaduna train attack being called ‘bandits’. The video they released of the Agric Bank MD says it all, along with their cryptic (to us who don’t know, perhaps) requests/demands/orders made to the government. Now I understand the Kaduna’s frustrations and his pained remark that he will resort to foreign mercenaries to take care of the problem. When will we admit that we’re dealing with terrorists? When will an all-out war be taken to their hideouts to crush them once and for all? If nothing tangible is done, do we really think these evil-doers will just decide to lay down their arms and get whatever pardon is on the menu of the day? The saddest part of all this is that I actually had hope in this administration.

Samuel Eniola, Karu, Abuja.