By Williams Amofokhai
Bola Tinubu, President of Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria says kidnappers will henceforth be treated as terrorists.
Kidnapping for ransom has turned big business ventures in Nigeria as kidnappers smile to the bank with whopping millions of naira on daily basis.
The North East and Northwest are the most affected, but the kidnapping for ransom has spread to every nooks and crannies of the nation.
An angry Tinubu condemned the reprehensible acts perpetrated by kidnappers across the country.
He says when he hosted a Ramadan dinner with members of the Federal judiciary led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola on Tuesday that the nation must bring banditry to a halt.
The president rants on: ”We must treat kidnappers as terrorists. They are cowardly. They have been degraded. They look for soft targets. They go to schools and kidnap children and cause disaffection. We must treat them equally as terrorists in order to get rid of them, and I promise you we will get rid of them.”
He also delves into the review of salaries of judicial officers, saying his his administration would continue to implement necessary reforms to improve the welfare and working conditions of judicial officers.
”I recognize that the judiciary has one of the most unrewarded responsibilities. They are yet to modernize equipment and recordkeeping, and their progress towards improvement is slow.
”When you look at the career path of a judicial officer, they cannot practice the vocation for which they were trained after retirement.
”While the framers of the law may have their reasons, I perceive this differently and see this from a fair compensation angle that should benefit all,” the President says.