-Blank NEWS Online (NIGERIA) –By Austen AKHAGBEME:

It is simply unthinkable, at the degenerate level of our already comatose and completely confused internal security system in Nigeria, in recent times.

That the anarchists can strike without remorse, at a time the chief security officer and the commander in chief himself, is holidaying in Katsina speaks volume of a new found boldness on the part of these daredevil bandits and kidnappers.

That over 300 students can be successfully kidnapped, without an inkling or premonition from an advance security intelligence on the part of the Presidential team, reflects the true state of advance intelligence gathering in our clime.

These are truly bad times, especially for the parents of the abducted children and the state as a whole. From one gory scenario to another, insecurity is taking a new definition and I find this very disconcerting.

Deaths, gruesome killings, abduction of innocent children and women, kidnapping for ransome, etc, are all met with State aloofness, indecision, confusion, blame game and inaction to the consternation and amusement of the international community. How did we get here?

Very recently, innocent farmers in the volatile Northeast Nigeria, were hacked to death with their throats slashed like chickens, with no commensurate response from our security forces. There’s no doubt that their death is in vain as attention is suddenly moved away from them to the Kankara shocker.

This has become the new normal: one bad news to another and then to another. And Nigeria moves on. Yet, the painful irony is the fact that the protection of lives and property remains the fundamental obligation of the State to her citizens. Where this is absent, it becomes practically difficult to refer to such a geographical location as a true State.

But this is where we are and what we’ve become. The cacophony of the hitherto collective voice of dissent, especially in the North is waning and dying. The Falcons can clearly hear the falconers. The fear to speak against the powers that be is palpable. The north is in disarray and disrepair. Are the chickens coming home to roost?

It is gradually becoming obvious that our security challenges have no strategic human solution. When a Nation begins to play politics with the very essence of nationhood and nationalism, chances are that the citizens will suffer for a very long time. Let the government and those reposed with the responsibility of maintaining peace and order in Nigeria bury their heads in shame, as we pray for the safe return of the innocent 333 abducted students from Kankara, in the home state of Mr President.

• Austen AKHAGBEME is a Columnist with Blank NEWS Online