AfriPulse
May 31 (THEWILL) — Reports linking elected and appointed officials to kidnapping in the country may sound alarming but in reality, it is a story foretold. Successive administrations at the centre and sub-national levels have often admitted harbouring such criminal elements within but stopped short of naming them. There is no hiding anymore.
Ongoing investigations that have linked two government officials to cases of adduction and ransom taking in their respective states, is just saying the obvious. At least the hidden faces behind kidnapping and banditry are now publicly coming to light. This is what the cases involving a former aide to Governor Dikko Radda of Katsina State, Nura Garwa and the Vice Chairman of Ilejemeje Local Government in Ekiti State, Hon. Mrs Grace Ogunleye, show.
According to reports of the ongoing investigation into Ogunleye’s case, she has been implicated in alleged orchestration of her kidnapping on May 20, 2026, by gun-men along the Ipere-Iludun road in her vehicle shortly after leaving the Council Secretariat. She was safely rescued unhurt days after. Investigation shows that the kidnapping was arranged by her. She was said to be facing difficulties at meeting up with constituents demands and inability to fulfil financial obligation to a certain politician after collecting money from him. Recall that sometime in 2024, her boss, the chairman of the same LGA, Hon. Omotosho was also kidnaped and released after ransom payment.
The current Chairman of the LGA, Hon. Pius Alaba Dada who confirmed and condemned the development as shocking, disturbing and unacceptable, however, promised the people of the local government that the law must take its course, irrespective of the status and political position as nobody is above the law.
In the same vein, the Katsina State Ministry of Information and Culture, which identified Nura Garwa as a suspected bandit, said that the ex- aide to the governor as Senior Special Assistant on Community Development, had earlier been suspended from the position over allegations of diverting empowerment materials meant for distribution to communities in Batsari Local Government Area under the state’s Community Development Programme. During the ongoing primaries of the APC, Garwa showed interest in contesting for a seat in the Katsina State House of Assembly.
According to a police statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Culture, Bala Zango, the former aide’s involvement was known following the arrest of suspects in the abduction of an eight-year-old boy in Katsina metropolis on May 13, 2026.
The abductors demanded N50 million ransom and later collected N17 million after negotiations. After investigation, the Katsina Police Command’s Violent Crime Response Unit arrested six suspects, including Mr Garwa, whom police described as the mastermind and a neighbour to the victim’s family. Police said the suspects will be arraigned in court upon completion of investigations, police said. Good enough.
Indeed, when a former National Chairman of the governing All Progressives Congress, Usman Kawu Baraje confessed that the party imported bandits from outside the country to help it unseat the Goodluck Jonathan presidency in the event that it was prevented from assuming office in the 2015 election it projected it would win, it was a matter of time to find kidnappers and bandits occupying seat of government and using it to assist, collude and participate in such criminal activities.
What the party started as a matter of political strategy, importing arms and bandits into the country, is treasonable and failing to disclose those involved in felony. Recently, high profile Nigerians accused the government of knowing funders and supporters of terrorism in the country but refusing to act. Islamic cleric Sheikh Mohammed Gumi and ex-Chief of Army State, Lt. Gen. Buratai, retired, has said so, apart from other relevant stakeholders.
It is high time for governments to take a front seat in the fight against terrorism by naming, shaming, arresting and prosecuting known culprits. In addition to the kinetic approach it had been using for years bit appears to be yielding minimum results.
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Source: TheWillNigeria | Read the Full Story…
