BY ADEYEMI AKANJI – Former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Fatima Binta Bello has lamented the high rate of kidnap incidences in Gombe State in which no fewer than 5 people were kidnapped in Kaltungo Local Government Area of the State within five days.
This was as she urged the Federal Government to wake up from its slumber in addressing the challenges facing the nation, stressing that Nigerians are tired of failed promises.
Hon. Fatima Bello noted that the insecurity situation in particularly kidnappings has set the peaceful town of Kaltungo into mourning.
The ugly incidents were confirmed by the paramount ruler of Kaltungo, the Mai Kaltungo, Engineer Saleh Mohammed, when he received Hon. Fatima Binta Bello, who went to condole him over the unfortunate development in the area.
Bello berated the Federal Government for making promises it failed to address particularly the rampant incidents of banditry and kidnappings that have continued unabated in the land thereby putting every Nigerian at the risk of insecurity.
Hon. Fatima Binta Bello, who represented Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency of Gombe State in the House of Representatives during which she was Deputy Minority Whip, told newsmen shortly after she donated 204 chairs and 204 computer tables to the Kaltungo Model CBT Centre (JAMB Centre), that the kidnappings is becoming unbearable to the ordinary people and even the government in power.
She noted that the kidnappers even pick people who cannot pay the ransom that they are demanding, adding that the situation is becoming unbearable for the people and even the Government of the day.
She therefore called on the Federal and state governments to make security their number one priority for everybody saying that is the primary responsibility for being in Government.
According to her; “The Federal Government promised to protect the lives and property of the people, but as the Mai Kaltungo confirmed, kidnappers have picked more than 15 people, many of whom are less privileged who can barely have N1,000 of their own and the kidnappers are demanding N50, N60, N100 million as ransom.
“This is madness, if Government is working right, things wouldn’t have been this way. People are living in hunger, hike in prices of petrol and other commodities, I don’t know where we are heading to in Nigeria. I am pained,” she lamented.
