Jan. 23, 2024
By Reporter
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has given approval for the emergency procurement of digital tracking tools to help stem the rising incidences of kidnapping, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has said.
He stated this on Monday during a media interface in Abuja, but without giving details of the order.
Wike lamented the absence of requisite equipment to combat criminalities which, he noted, had led to the current increase in unpleasant occurrences. stressing that with the emergency procurement approval by President Tinubu, the story would not be business as usual.
“So many facilities were not provided. Vehicles for the security agencies are not there. You cannot believe that equipment to track criminals is not there. When anything happens, they go back to the Office of the National Security Adviser or to the Force Headquarters. That is not the way it is supposed to be,” Wike stated.
It could be recalled that in the past couple of weeks, the Federal Capital Territory has been in the news but for the very wrong reasons of increasing barbaric incidents of kidnappings and killings of citizens in and around the capital city of Abuja.
The inhumane events were capped by the recent killing of Nabeeha Al-Kadriyar, a 400-level student of Biological Science, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, who was kidnapped along with her father and sisters from their home in the outskirts of Abuja.
The FCT Commissioner of the Public Complaints Commission, Dalhatu Ezekiel Musa, recently raised the alarm over the escalating rate of kidnappings for ransom and other criminal activities in the FCT, revealing that over 132 people were kidnapped, and five lives were lost in less than three months between November 2023 and January 2024, thereby highlighting the severity of the crisis and the need for comprehensive emergency intervention.
Meanwhile, the FCT Police Command has announced the arrest of a notorious kidnapper, Chinaza Philip-Okoye, when they swooped in on him and his gang members.
