Retired army officials responsible for kidnappings in Northern Nigeria — APGA Chieftain declares

A chieftain of the ruling party in Anambra State, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Jude Emecheta, has accused unnamed former soldiers of being behind the endless abductions in the northern part of Nigeria.

He said that it is retired soldiers who are angry over their unexpected retirement that took to the bush in retaliation.

On the recent attack at the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA), Emecheta, Managing Director of Anambra State Signage and Advertising Agency (ANSAA), said that it takes people that are conversant of the place to be able to penetrate, attack and get away with it.

Emecheta, who is also an APGA scribe, said on Thursday: “For you to go to a school and abduct more than 73 school children, the principal and the vice, you can’t be an ordinary person.

“Retired army officers and other trained personnel are behind all the kidnappings. If you see the way they carry arms, you will know that mere civilians cannot do that. Personally, I can’t handle gun the way they do.

“The people who are training these bandits, terrorists in our country are army officers. You can’t tell me that someone went into the bush, then wake up in the morning, attack a school and abduct some students. There must be something behind the impetus, that you have a trained officer for you to do it.

“Security issues we have are caused by retired armies in the North. All government need to do is align with the bandits and cattle rustlers to calm the situation. People are being killed in droves, in fact people are living like ghosts waiting for when it is their turn to go. The situation is dire.”

“I commend the Chief of Staff for what he is doing right now, talking to the service men, to see how to nip this issue in the bud. He knows what he is doing. For security to be checked, they have to go back to their records.

“If you don’t get these retired officers back, then something should be done to pacify them.”

According to him, the issue of kidnap is less in the east because most of such low rank retired army officers are mostly from northern Nigeria