Nigeria’s House of Representatives has called on the federal government to declare a state of emergency on kidnapping in the country.
It also called on the authorities to urgently convene a security summit that will fashion out an effective response to the kidnapping phenomenon in Nigeria.
Tuesday’s early morning raid and subsequent abduction of students and teachers in a Lagos school brings to the fore, the menace of serial abductions in Nigeria.
The lawmaker representing Akoko South, Ondo state, South West, Nigeria, Babatunde Kolawole raised the matter under matters of public importance.
Kolawole noted that in the last ten years, cases of kidnapping have escalated to a very disturbing level.
He recalls that a London-based firm that gathers intelligence on crime, reported that in the first half of 2013 alone, Nigeria had the most kidnap attempts in the world, accounting for 26 per cent of all such recorded incidents.
He fears it has gotten to a point where nobody is safe.
Other members who declare support for the motion lament that Nigeria ranked number 5 on the global kidnapping hotspots in 2014.
They worry that the rate at which abductions have escalated in the country puts every citizen’s life at risk.
The legislators are worried that Nigeria is now seen as the kidnap capital of the world, having risen from 475 reported cases in 2011, five hundred in 2012 to more than one thousand five hundred cases every year since 2013.
They call for concerted efforts towards nipping this development in the bud.
And now that Nigeria is trying to diversify its economy, they say kidnapping could affect tourism and the nation’s investment potentials.
