Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, has called for capital punishment to be meted out to those responsible for the recent spate of abductions targeting women and children in states like Borno and Kaduna.
She has condemned the abductors, describing them as “cowards” for preying on the vulnerable.
Her stern remarks come in the wake of brazen attacks in which scores of victims, including schoolchildren, were kidnapped by armed gunmen.
Addressing a gathering of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party’s National Women Leaders on Friday, Tinubu issued an impassioned plea for the perpetrators to face the ultimate penalty.
On the day the world celebrates International Women’s Day, Mrs Tinubu decried that women and girls are often the victims of the kidnappers, saying such acts rob Nigeria of its future.
“They are cowards. Our hearts bleed. I call on the state governments that once we take hold of them, they deserve capital punishment. Why can’t they take men of their size, why are they touching women and children,” she said.
“What they are doing is that they are trying to kill our future, we all know that when parents are old, we rely on our children, we see them as our investments that have not gone to a waste especially when they are successful”.
“Why will you now take them from their schools? Right now, I think enough is enough. As a former lawmaker, I believe that any one of them captured deserves capital punishment”.
“I believe most mothers will support me on this because we carry our children for nine months, and we cannot watch what we love to wither away”.
Nigeria has faced a troubling surge of kidnappings in Borno and Kaduna states in a spate of 24 hours, eliciting nationwide outrage and amplifying fears about the fragile security conditions plaguing multiple regions.
On Thursday, armed bandits launched an assault on Kuriga village in Kaduna State’s Chikun Local Government Area. After indiscriminately opening fire, the assailants abducted a staggering 280 students and teachers from the Government Secondary School and LEA Primary School in the community.
That came barely 24 hours after insurgents abducted 200 internally displaced women in Ngala, the headquarters of Gambarou Ngala in Borno State, while they were fetching firewood in the bush.
