January 22, 2024

– Reporter

The Senator Representing the Federal Capital Territory, Ireti Kingibe, has said the Senate will summon the Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike, over the rising rate of insecurity in Abuja.
There has been an increase in cases of kidnappings, abductions, one chance attacks, phone snatching, among others leaving residents uncertain of the security of their lives and property in Abuja in recent months.
Kingibe made the revelation when she appeared on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Sunday, saying that the Senate will summon the FCT minister and heads of security agencies over the spike in crimes in the nation’s capital territory.
It could be recalled that the minister had set up two joint security task forces toward ensuring the safety and security of residents of the FCT by combating the spate of robbery, kidnappings and other criminalities in the nation’s capital.
The Commissioner of Police, FCT Command, Haruna Garba, made this known while briefing journalists on the outcome of the FCT Security Council meeting in Abuja in October last year.
Garba said that one of them was a Joint Task Force consisting of all security agencies in the FCT, on “one chance” activities.

The other, he said, is a Joint Task Force to curtail the activities of armed robbers, kidnappers and all forms of crimes within the FCT and its environment.
According to him, the goal is to flush out criminal elements from the FCT, stop cross-border crimes and curb the activities of “one chance” in the FCT.
“The FCT security council meeting, headed by Wike, met this afternoon and discussed ways and means of ensuring safety and security in FCT.
Ireti Kingibe, while speaking on the Senate’s summon of the minister said, “When the Senate resumes, I plan that the (Senate) FCT committee specifically needs to sit with the two ministers and the security agencies for them to give us their plans concerning security.
“It is not that I am hoping. I know he will be summoned. But whether he responds or not is a different matter entirely. But as the chief security officer of the FCT, he should have a plan.
“He should be able to tell us, the committee, and specifically me, that this is the plan for protecting the people of the FCT. Between him, the police commissioner, and the head of the DSS, they must have a plan.”
Kingibe, who commended the security agencies, added that a lot needs to be done to tackle insecurity in the nation’s capital.
She added, “I must commend the security agencies for doing something when we started to scream. But the truth is a little bit earlier, I tried to draw their attention, and I was told that it was exaggerated and I said it couldn’t be because what I’m telling them, I did not get from social media. I got it from my constituents. But I’m glad we are now all on the same page.

“They’re trying to take it all seriously, but a lot more needs to be done. Catching the kidnappers is just the symptom. We need to get to the root cause of what is causing all of this insecurity.”
Over 69 people were killed and 152 abducted during 194 attacks carried out by bandits and other criminals in the FCT in 2022, according to data sourced from media reports and a leading indigenous intelligence outfit, Beacon Consulting.
It could be recalled that on January 6, Wike met with heads of security agencies in Abuja, along with the chairpersons of the area councils over the spike in kidnappings in the FCT, said to be since December 2023.
According to the special assistant to President Bola Tinubu on social media, Olusegun Dada, the minister directed the area council chairmen to “enhance their efforts” and address the security challenges in the city.
The meeting was in the wake of escalating insecurity and kidnappings in the nation’s capital.
On January 5, gunmen raided a community in Bwari Area Council of Abuja and abducted scores of people, including a family of six sisters.
The abductors brutally killed Nabeeha Mansoor Al-Kadriyar – a 400-level student of Biological Sciences, ABU, Zaria – one of the six sisters, purportedly as a warning to the family for failing to pay the ransom of N60 million, which they later increased to N100 million.
The sisters and their father have however been released along with other kidnapped people, with the Kadriyar family and the police in disagreement over how the release was perfected.