“We don’t care to dig into the root to know what is really the cause of this. Nobody has ever been arrested or prosecuted publicly so that other people will learn,” he lamented, noting that “since Boko Haram started in 2009 till date, we only hear that they are on top of the situation, but then the damage is done, people are killed and nothing happens.”
“Crime in Nigeria seems to have evolved in a way that it started with Boko Haram, then other terrorists have joined them; we now have kidnappers, bandits and other forms of organized crime,” Archbishop Kaigama further lamented.
He continued, “We have to wake up and that is why the outside world is thinking that the Nigerian Government is doing very little about this.”
“Why should people be missing and it's not possible to locate them? This goes on again and again, and then people are asked to go and fend for themselves,” the Catholic Archbishop who started his Episcopal Ministry in April 1995 as Bishop of Nigeria’s Jalingo Diocese posed.
He decried the laxity on the part of the government and security agencies, saying, “If your family member is missing and you go to the security agents they will tell you that they can do very little that you should go and settle with the kidnappers. That is not good; our government must be held responsible and if they don’t want to be ridiculed by the international community, they should wake up and do something more seriously.”
“Considering all the killings in Nigeria either by terrorist attacks, considering the people kidnapped from their homes, on the streets, in broad daylight, in the night, and then you hear very little that is been done, I wouldn’t be surprised if the international community blacklisted Nigeria as a country with poor religious tolerance and people who don’t care about human lives,” he said.
For Archbishop Kaigama, “It’s not about religion or about where you belong. It’s about safety of the human life of Nigerians and the sacredness of life which needs to be respected and this is going on, on and on; so if we want our name not to be dragged to the mud, we have to do something and we have the capacity as a country to do something about the situation.”
“We have to be honest and sincere because I know funds and resources are available to fight these criminals but unfortunately they are not being utilized the right way,” the Catholic Archbishop said.
He continued, “We give so much funds and resources to fight a particular crime and the money goes the wrong way and the criminals are said to be on the run. We must look inward to see what we can do and it has to be something urgent.”
“I think we need to cultivate the culture of sincerity; those entrusted with the resources to fight this crime must do so with a single mind because I am not in doubt about the capacity of Nigeria to address this insecurity issue. What has been lacking is the political will to address these killings,” Archbishop Kaigama told ACI Africa December 17.
