Inside Soucres : Akande Calls for Religious Leaders to Influence Bandits Against Abductions

Ex-presidential aide Laolu Akande has urged President Bola Tinubu to order the investigation of alleged collusion of criminals with members of security agencies like the Nigeria Police Force, the military, and the Nigeria Customs Service. Akande, the host of Inside Sources, a television programme on national affairs, stated this week’s during the edition of the […]

Ex-presidential aide Laolu Akande has urged President Bola Tinubu to order the investigation of alleged collusion of criminals with members of security agencies like the Nigeria Police Force, the military, and the Nigeria Customs Service.

Akande, the host of Inside Sources, a television programme on national affairs, stated this week’s during the edition of the show aired on Channels Television on Friday.

An investigative journalist Fisayo Soyombo had recently alleged that criminals connive with Customs officers to smuggle goods into the country.

Soyombo’s allegation is one of the very many indicting security agents of working with bandits, smugglers and enemies of the state.

On Friday, Akande, a public affairs analyst said the President must confront the allegation of collusion. “Mr President, please confront this, and if you have started, continue to confront this. There has to be properly investigated and it ought to be dealt with. We don’t need collusion.”

He also said the trend of security agencies and relevant government bodies working in silos must end if the nation is serious about winning the war against criminals. “There is an embarrassing lack of coordination. I think the President himself has identified that publicly. It must stop. Mr President must make it happen, he must ensure that allegations of collusion are sorted out, he must ensure that security agencies and other relevant government bodies coordinate effectively. It can be done.”

Last week, marauding bandits abducted about 300 schoolchildren were kidnapped in Kuriga in the Chikun Local Government of Kaduna State. The recent abduction of schoolchildren has been a sad reminder of mass kidnapping incidents like Chibok, Dapchi, Kankara, Kagara, amongst others.

On this, Akande said the President must give the service chiefs timelines to deliver on security challenges in the country, adding that the nation needs a decisive leadership approach imbued by courage and forthrightness at the moment.

“There must be consequences for every repeated and all the numerous cases of insecurity. There ought to be remedies with each recurrence of a security breach. There ought to be new lessons learnt. We need our government to assure us that they have a handle of these things. That is by the way the very meaning of ‘Renewed Hope’ which is the theme of the Tinubu administration,” he stated.

“The other time the Senate passed a resolution to go sit-down meeting with Mr President, with the service chiefs to discuss the problem of insecurity. That seems to be an encouraging move, at the very least. But when is that happening? It is so disappointing that after that encouraging promise by the Senate, what we saw next was how Senators having to discipline one of their own, Senator Abdul Ningi, for what is clearly an irresponsible behaviour on the part of Ningi.

“So, the Senate must quickly get back to work of the people. That is why they were elected. And if there are some political opponents who are trying to put more fire behind the scenes on the issue of insecurity, or any other act of sabotage has had been alleged in the past, we hope it is not true. We hope it is not true because ultimately the law enforcement agencies must do their job even to deal with such people.

“Besides, it is important to state today our religious leaders, especially those who claim to know some of these bandits perpetrating these havocs on innocent Nigerians including schoolchildren, the clerics have a duty imposed on them by God to do everything to dissuade the bandits. They don’t even need government to tell them that.

“The role of all religious leaders is to always pray and then act and behave only in ways that advance our national interest and our public interest. All our religious leaders should continue to pray but they must also speak the truth because they are our moral compass, especially now, anything short of that will be totally averse to their divine calling.”