• Buni tasks Yahaya on insecurity, Onu expresses hope
•Women allege trading pride for survival
Disturbed by pervasive insecurity in the country, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), yesterday, declared the coming June 12 Democracy Day national protest day by members, insisting there was nothing worth celebrating.
Its National President, Comrade Sunday Asefon, pondered over what the most populous nation would be marking on that day when students and others are daily being killed and kidnapped by hoodlums.
Asefon, who addressed a news conference in Ado-Ekiti, stated that insecurity had reached a frightening height where safety of students is no longer guaranteed in schools.
He regretted that barely 24 hours after students of Greenfield University in Kaduna were released by their captors, some 200 pupils of Islamiyya School were abducted in Rafi Local Council of Niger State, in a most bizarre fashion.
The NANS leader said the incessant kidnapping of students in the North West and North Central geopolitical zones calls for immediate action by the political leadership to halt the nation’s gradual slide into anarchy.
As part of measures to end the menace, Asefon declared June 11 as national day of prayers for the leadership and security apparatuses to win the war against banditry, killings and abductions nationwide.
“Putting it in the right perspective, the government and security agencies have failed us. We can no longer trust them.
“Government must convene a national dialogue where people can come with different ideas and proffer solutions to this insecurity issue,” he added.
MEANWHILE, President Muhammadu Buhari has asked the Senate to confirm the appointment of MaJ.-Gen. Farouk Yahaya as Chief of Army Staff (COAS).
In a letter read yesterday by the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, at plenary, the Nigerian leader urged the federal lawmakers to give his request expeditious attention.
Yahaya’s nomination is coming after the death of his predecessor, Lt.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, and 10 others in an air crash in Kaduna on May 21.
He officially assumed leadership of the Nigerian Army on Friday, having being appointed the 22nd COAS by the President on May 27.
BESIDES, Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State and Chairman of All Progressive Congress (APC) Caretaker/Extra-Ordinary Convention Planning Committee has charged the COAS to overcome the country’s security challenges.
He made the appeal in Damaturu, while congratulating Yahaya on his appointment. The governor described the military as a fine officer.
ALSO, Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, yesterday, confirmed that Nigeria had the needed resources to conquer the insecurity in the country.
Speaking when he received the president, Prof. Peter Olayiwola, and members of the executive council of the Chartered Institute of Computer Forensics of Nigeria in Abuja, the minister stressed the need to support the experts in providing veritable evidence to prosecute crime.
MOREOVER, the Federation of Women Association has decried the adverse effect of insecurity on members, adding that those in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps have had to trade their pride for food in a bid to survive.
The group’s president, Halima Jibril, at a dialogue in Abuja, noted: “Women have been targeted, particularly for sexual abuse, and even those IDPs have had to exchange their honour for food to survive.”
