Yemisi Izuora
Key Civil Society Organisations under the Joint Action Civil Society Coalition, claimed in its report that Nigeria lost over 2,000 persons to worsening insecurity in the first quarter of 2021,
They blamed the present administration for its failure to resolve the nation’s security challenges .
In a joint statement,the group implored Nigerians to register their displeasure with the state of affairs across the country by participating in a series of mass actions from Monday, May 26, 2021.
They also emphasized the need for Nigerians to participate in solemn assemblies across the country to commemorate the 4th National Day of mourning and remembrance of victims of mass atrocities on May 28, 2021.
They advised all the citizens to boycott all Democracy Day activities on May 29, 2021 in protest against the deplorable state of the nation’s democracy.
“Following its sharp increase of 43 per cent in mass atrocities in 2020, Nigeria has continued to experience a decline in security across the nation.In the first quarter of 2021(January to March), we recorded an all-time quarterly high of almost 2000 fatalities from mass atrocities incidents across the country.This week, across the six geopolitical zones, there were escalated combustions of violence resulting in even more deaths.”
They noted that they highlighted the various forms of insecurities which were leading to loss of lives across the country, in their last joint statement issued in February 2021.
Some of them include, the unending war in the North-East and attacks on peaceful protesters by security agents while terrorists carry out mass murder, rape, maiming and kidnapping of Nigerians including women and children.
They expressed disgust over the way government grants amnesty to terrorists, saying: “This is tantamount to funding and supporting terrorists, encouraging murder and the decimation of the Nigeria’s gallant troops and amounts to treason against the Nigerian state and people,” they added.
The statement also cited cases of terrorist herder attacks on unarmed farming communities and reprisal attacks in the face of government inaction and failure to bring the terrorist herdsmen and their funders to justice, as causes of loss of innocent lives.
Other instances they cited were, “Large scale terrorist attacks in the North West irresponsibly tagged by the government as ‘banditry’ in a bid to downplay their criminality.”