Nigeria kidnappers abduct school children from bus near Aba; demand $130,000

Nigeria!It's mind wrecking to think how 20 kids were kidnapped by heartless criminals in Nigeria. While the government will spend billions of tax payers money to celebrate 50 years of fruitless independence,only God knows the harrowing experience these children and their parents are going through on the eve of a nation's so called birthday.There's really nothing to celebrate with all the goings on.

This is very disturbing and at the same time depressing. When bandits begin to freely run riot without hinderance, it's suggestive of the breakdown of law and order! Abia State, and to be specific, Aba is the melting pot of commercial activities in the heartland of the southeast of Nigeria. People of all hue and cry have all come to settle there with just one thing in their mind; to eke out a living. Having been conversant with the way the average 'Nwa Aba' thinks and reasons, I think what's happening today was bound to explode in our faces sooner than later. I'ts all about the worship of Mammon! I beg to differ that what's happening now has anything to do with oil or militancy. It's a clear response by some weak elements in our society who cannot follow through with the simple principle of sowing and reaping in due season. You cannot sow cassava to reap cocoyam, sang Majek Fashek. Nigeria, steadily over the years failed to channel the enterprising energy of the teeming population that throng the city season after season. We are only reaping what we have sown over the years. Who are the kidnappers? Who are those being kidnapped? In whose territory are people being kidnapped? From the days of Late Chief Sam Mbakwe, who cried his eyes out lamenting the degenerate state of Aba till date, what had been the response of the federal, state and the local governments toward addressing the hydra-headed problems of Aba? Someone had said 'there comes a time when push will come to shove'. That is unfortunately what it has turned out to be. The people who kidnap our children are exploiting our natural vulnerability to buckle when our future is threatened. No parent will standby and see his future decapitated just like that. Kidnappers are just keeping up with that same old instinct believing that the only assured way of getting at what they desperately need will only be done by threatening the future of those who have already compromised and acquiscized, accepting the status quo as okay! Simply because they have or are already investing in their future by training their children in private schools without caring a hoot about those who cannot afford to send their own children to such high end schools. Is it then any wonder that you can hear of someone who, I'm quite sure has a niece, a nephew or cousin conspiring to deal a devastating blow to his uncleor aunty by masterminding the kidnap of such a magnitude? It's simply the manifestation of the collapse of our already railroaded dysfunctional society. We must return to the drawing board. Solving this will not be done by the fire brigade approach of flooding Abia State with strange faced soldiers who neither speak nor understand the language of what the people are saying. It's clearly beyond that. Aba is symptomatic of the larger problem which plagues the Nigerian nation today. I want this to be made a campaign issue nation wide. We have grown as a nation to know that it cannot forever be business as usual for us to think that the politician can wake up and ride roughshod over the electorate by positioning himself alone to rip off the people. It's sad that once again, the parents of these innocent children will run around to scrape whatever they can get to pacify heartless bandits and their benefactors!

Dear Lord Jesus, I pray that your grace will keep the children safe and cause them to be released ASAP.