By Achadu Gabriel, Kaduna
Underaged Children, mostly of slaughtered parents in Katsina, the home State of the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari, freely took to the street in protest following recent several attacks on different villages by bandits in the state for three consecutive days without intervention from security agents.
The children’s actions have been generating reactions from well meaning Nigerians, who saw the development as a slight on the country’s entire security architecture.
Nigerians blamed the government for allowing the situation to degenerate to the level where minors took protest as an option.
According to reports, the bandits, last week, launched several attacks on different villages in Katsina, including the Wurma community, which was attacked for three days consecutively, without any intervention from any of the security agencies.
This development angered the children, whose parents were being savagely slaughtered like animals, and they stormed the street, bearing sticks and chanting to express their grievances over what they called the nonchalant attitude of both the government and the security agents towards their security and welfare.
The protest, which took place in Wurma, had children of aged between 10 and 15 majorly.
According to reports, Wurma is a big farming community that was completely deserted after three days of continuous attacks without intervention from the security operatives.
The protest was captured in a video posted on Hausaroom Instagram page, with a caption: “Children protest over killings of their parents by bandits for three consecutive days in Katsina”.
According to one of the protesters, who spoke in the video, Jamil Mabai, Wurma had become a ghost village as people had fled to neighbouring towns. He said.
“Wurma village, a big farming community, is completely deserted; security personnel are nowhere to be found. Our parents are being slaughtered like animals.
“We are helpless and that is why we are crying out to the whole world to come to our rescue. The government has abandoned us”, he stated.
Nigerians have been reacting to the protest with some saying that the children were only drawing international attention to what is happening in their communities since the government appeared to have abandoned the people to their own fate.
But, there are others who would want to see the development beyond what the children wanted to achieve with the protest. They are concerned with the psychological effect of the protest on the children, particularly in future when they grow into adults.
Those pushing this view have expressed concerned that the children would never forget the trauma when they grow up.
Although the vice president, Kashim Shettima, has pledged that the government would improve the country’s security situation, most Nigerians believe he was just making a political statement as such promises had become a cliché in Nigeria.
Shettima assured them that the government would do everything possible to secure the lives and property of the people, not only in Katsina, but also anywhere in Nigeria.
Reacting to the development in confidence, a public administrator, said that the government has failed the children. “How can you convince those children that Nigeria is not a jungle, where only the fittest or the strongest live?
“How can anybody console the children that all will be well? Are you going to bring back their parents who were mowed down in their sleep for being law abiding?
“How can they live to accept the fact that crime does not pay, when in their very eyes, some bandits stormed their communities and killed their loving parents without any resistance from the security agents?
“How can they trust a government that has allowed non-state actors to keep tormenting their communities without any deterrent?
“As far as those children are concern, there is no government and if care is not taken, many of them will take to crime as a way of life.
“So, the government should, for once, be very serious about the issue of security of lives and property. “What Nigerians need is for the government to walk their talk. We need to be able to see action. These are children between 10 and 15 years.
“How can they ever forget the incident when they grow up? “It is not enough for the vice president to go there and promise that the government would do everything within its powers to protect them from further attacks.”
“I think what the government should do to show capacity and preparedness to deal with the situation and restore confidence in the people is to go after the bandits that have caused the death of those parents, arrest them and punish them accordingly”, he stated.
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