By joshua KARIMI: INSURGENTS, BANDITS PLOT AGAINST NIGERIA WILL FAIL
Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial Zone, Sunday Steve Karimi, is confident the upsurge in insurgency and banditry across the country is nothing but a passing phase in the nation’s evolution. He believes it will blow over and become a footnote in the nation’s history. Efforts to destabilise the country unsettle democracy will fail, he observed. Receiving his constituents from the seven local government areas in Kogi West in his Abuja home who felicitated with him on the occasion of his third year in office at the weekend, Karimi observed that what Nigeria was experiencing “orchestrated and targeted embarrassment to unsettle the administration of President Bola Tinubu and distract it from its set objectives.” According to him, local miscreants and their foreign collaborators are intent on bringing the administration to its knees. This, he noted, has informed simultaneous, sporadic and asymmetric assaults on the country from different parts of the country, which is precipitating scare and fear.
About three weeks ago, schoolchildren and teachers numbering 45 were kidnapped in Esinele and Yawota in Ori-Ire local government area of Oyo State, while former Director of Defence Information, Major-General Rabe Abubakar and his wife, were abducted in Matazu local government area, Katsina State. Security breaches have also been reported in Benue, Plateau, Kogi, Kwara, Ogun, among other states in the country, in recent weeks and days, heightening apprehension in the polity. Security personnel have risen to the occasion in several instances to repel such attacks and neutralise the vagrants.
In the evening of Saturday June 6, 2026, for instance, Mrs Olaide Busayo John-Paul, younger sister to former Minister for Power, Adebayo Adelabu and her twin sons who were kidnapped in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital 72 hours earlier, were rescued by the police. Two of their abductors were neutralised in the operation. A combined operation between the Nigerian army and their Beninese counterparts, routed a platoon of insurgents terrorising parts of Niger State during the week, and impounded many of their weapons and operational equipment. This is as Nigerian and US troops sustain the decimation and degradation of Boko Haram elements, and fighters of the the Islamic State of West Africa Province, (ISWAP), and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, (ISIS).
Senator Karimi commended President Tinubu for maintaining focus on routing insecurity from the country, and alluded to efforts to fast-track the establishment of state police. He equally applauded the President for his sensitivity towards ensuring broader spread of the nation’s security and defence forces to ensure adequate coverage. “Our security services deserve every commendation. Enemies of the country are getting more wily, more daring, more ruthless by the day, but our compatriots at arms are spreading thin to protect our country. And Mr President is giving every possible support in the national interest.”
Karimi who is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Services, expressed optimism that the schoolchildren abducted in Oyo and Mussa, Borno states almost concurrently, will be rescued and reunited with their families. Said Karimi: “We are all pained and agonised by the unfortunate development. Those of us in government are parents and we feel the sleeplessness of parents and families involved. Government is on top of the situation and every effort will be made to safeguard every Nigerian.” He applauded the synergy between the various arms of the nation’s security and defence architecture, which he acknowledged is directly proportionate to the successes recorded in national efforts to ensure security.
Leader of the delegation which visited him, Hon Abdulganiyu Salaudeen, commended Senator Karimi for his efforts in the development of the senatorial district over the past three years. Salaudeen, a former council chairman and state constituency member in the Kogi State House of Assembly, observed that Karimi had acquitted himself creditably over the last three years of representing Kogi West in the nation’s uppermost legislative chambers. He commended him for proactively supporting the curtailment of insecurity in the zone, while also striving for the rehabilitation of the arterial Kabba-Isanlu-Egbe-Ilorin road, which is very central to the socioeconomy and security of Kogi West. Salaudeen conveyed the prayers and good wishes of the zone to the All Progressives Congress, (APC), President Tinubu and Senator Karimi in the emerging political process.
Toye Ibitoye
Legal Aide to Senator Sunday Karimi
Representing Kogi West Senatorial Zone
Chairman, Senate Committee on Services
June 7, 2026