Lagos kidnap: CSOs demand govt to refund ransom

A coalition, the Safe Schools and Communities Advocacy Group (SSACG), has demanded Lagos state government to refund more than N30 million the parents paid in ransom to release their sons kidnapped from their school. It also wants the government to rehabilitate the boys and grant them scholarship up to university level. It said rampant cases […]

A coalition, the Safe Schools and Communities Advocacy Group (SSACG), has demanded Lagos state government to refund more than N30 million the parents paid in ransom to release their sons kidnapped from their school.

It also wants the government to rehabilitate the boys and grant them scholarship up to university level.

It said rampant cases of kidnapping and other crimes "are a social consequence of government’s anti-poor neo-liberal policies of privatization of our commonwealth, devaluation of the Naira, commercialization of social infrastructure  and services, destruction of poor peoples’ homes and business premises, grandiose urbanization for the pleasure of the rich and the corrupt political class at the expense of the poor, unemployment and indiscriminate dislocation of the poor people’s settlement on flimsy excuses".

 These will naturally lead to social anger and high incidence of urban crime, the coalition said.

The statement read: "To avoid this social imbalance, we call on Lagos State Government, other state governments and the federal government to stop all anti-poor policies and programmes that lead frustrated youth into crime.

"We also demand for the withdrawal of  about one third of Police population that are presently engaged in non-constitutional duties serving as errand boys, and domestic servants to politicians, religious leaders, fraud merchants and other members of the over pampered corrupt class who can ordinarily afford the services of private security operatives. Those policemen and officers posted to such illegal duties should be immediately deployed to our communities especially where vulnerable schools are located."