This comes against a backdrop of frustration among Nigerians over the growing cases of banditry, bombing and kidnapping in the west African country, and the lack of a political resolve by the Federal Government. Disenchanted citizens argue that the Nigerian government must move fast against these criminal acts.
Meanwhile, citizens from several Nigerian states including Kaduna, Ibadan (Oyo State), Port Harcourt (Rivers State) and Benin City (Edo State) have begun protesting against what they say follow frightful incidents in several Nigerian cities.
In Kaduna state police recovered a bomb at one of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) staff quarters on Monday.
On Tuesday June 14, 2011, the police in Kaduna confirmed that they had found another bomb on a rail track near a bridge around Barnawa Government Reserved Area (GRA), the heart of the metropolis. Commuters were stranded as commercial vehicle operators, the state rail and water transport services promptly went off their routes.
In Oyo State, terror swept through the city of Ibadan over an alleged bomb plot. In the mystification that followed over the alleged bomb plot, members of the now banned National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) quickly withdrew their vehicles from the roads.
Officials of the Anti-Bomb Squad were deployed to the scene. However, no bomb was found at the scene.
In Rivers state, over 30 Nigerian Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members serving at a Community Secondary School abandoned their classrooms on Tuesday June 14, 2011 to protest the abduction of five of their colleagues who had been abducted by gunmen on their way home after their clearance on June 7, 2011.
The corps members have refused to teach until all their kidnapped colleagues are released unconditionally. According to reports, the kidnappers had asked for a ransom of N100 million in order to release the victims.
Experts believe the social circumstances that permit these crimes are prevalent across the country.
And with increasing bomb threats in the north and kidnappings in the south, the Nigerian government is left with a gargantuan duty to resolve the country’s rising socio-economic, geo-political and ethno-religious tensions.
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