Release Of Eruku Church Kidnap Victims: Matters Arising

On November 23, five days after armed men invaded the Christ Apostolic Church, Oke Igan, in Eruku, killing three worshippers and abducting 38 others, President Bola Tinubu announced that all the abductees had been released without stating how they were rescued.

Speaking on Arise Television on Monday, Bayo Onanuga, special adviser on information and strategy to President Tinubu, said the release was thanks to the DSS and the military.

“After the incident, the DSS and the military were involved in the rescue effort. They got in contact with the bandits to release the captives unharmed.

“On Sunday, they were able to get them out unharmed. They do have a way of tracking these people. The security agencies have a way of contacting these people. They (bandits) know the consequences of not acquiescing to government demands. They know they could be pummeled,”
Onanuga said.

Onanuga’s controversial disclosures have raised questions about the relationship between terrorists/bandits and security agencies. His disclosures can be interpreted to mean that our security agencies know the bandits and their locations. If this is so, why have they not flushed
them out?

Onanuga’s explanation that pummeling the terrorists inside their exclaves would result in collateral damages doesn’t add up. It only feeds into public speculation about official backing for terrorists, and allegation that the fight against terrorism has become a thriving industry from which some state officials, including security personnel profit from.

In May, President Tinubu approved the establishment of forest guards to secure the 1,129 forests in the country. The president
directed that the forest guards were to be well trained and armed to perform their duties, which is essentially to flush out terrorists and
criminal gangs hiding in the forest belts of the country.

This recruitment of the forest guards is supposed to be a security collaborative effort between the federal and state governments, while the office of the NSA and the Ministry of Environment were directed to take charge and ensure full implementation.

But nearly six months after, nothing has been heard about the matter. This is a security scheme that could have led to the employment of thousands of young Nigerians to police our forests and rid them of criminal elements terrorising communities.

Why has the scheme not taken off despite the surge in banditry across the country? Does it have anything to do with why security agencies are unable to flush terrorists out of the forests?

Insurgents, bandits and criminals killing and kidnapping for ransom hide in the forests to perpetrate their crimes. Some survivors have narrated how kidnappers hull their victims into the forests from where they reach out to families of the captives for ransom.

In the North-East, terrorists are taking cover in Sambisa Forest while bandits in the North-West hide in forest reserves like Kuwaimbana,
Kamuku, Birnin Gwari and Rugu.

In the North-Central and South-West, they have their strongholds in Alawa Forest, Kainji National Park, Old Oyo National Park and other forests
around the Ondo axis.

President Tinubu had promised not to cede an inch of Nigeria’s territory to terrorists. To keep that promise and protect lives and property, his administration must get rid of the criminals in the forests. The havens of terrorists in Nigeria must be demolished.

There is no time to waste.