Yobe Killings: Nigeria Under Siege, Tinubu Cries Out
A leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, yesterday the raised the alarm at the deadly attacks on Nigerians following the gruesome killing of over 60 students by the Boko Haram sect at College of Agriculture in Yobe State.
'Nigeria is under attack and the earlier those in charge realize this, the quicker the situation can be arrested. In terms of security, the present is not safe, neither is the future secured. The killings at the College of Agriculture were particularly jarring. Under cover of darkness, evil crept unto a campus of higher learning, turning it into a place of slaughter', he lamented.
Wondering how long it this gory situation will last and how many lives would have been lost before this evil is halted, Tinubu challenged the federal government to become more proactive in developing a comprehensive law enforcement, intelligence-gathering and economic incentives strategy to check the plague.
'On such a grave matter of national security, there is no partisanship. We are all Nigerians. We stand ready to help in this fight. We await the call of the federal government to do so,' he said.
In a statement he personally signed yesterday, he said: 'As a father and leader, I am deeply saddened by the senseless killings of innocent students. It is unacceptable and indefensible under any guise. It is an act that must be punished. The recent carnage in Borno State and now at the College of Agriculture in Yobe reminds us of the sinister nature of the enemy our nation now faces.
'There should be no mistake at this somber moment: those who launched these attacks did not launch them at the people they killed. They knew not the names of their victims or who they were. The dead were just unfortunate souls who happened to be close enough to murder. The real targets of these massacres were our nation, society and any semblance of civilized, modern life.
'These murderers snatch the lives of young people who were just entering the fullness of life. The attackers fell upon them so early that many of the students were still in bed. These young people only wanted an education to improve their future and that of the nation.
'They were armed only with this desire and with the tools of students. They had done no one any harm. Yet, their attackers executed them in the cruelest fashion. This is terror in its basest form. By this act, the crazed and armed menace we face tells us that attending school, attempting to get an education, is now a capital offense.'