The Nigerian government on June 29 arrested the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). His arrest followed a collaborative effort between security agencies in Nigeria and Interpol.

Nnamdi Kanu’s younger brother, Kingsley Kanu said he was unlawfully arrested in Kenya, detained and was subsequently extracted from the country to Nigeria where he is now detained. Kanu is facing charges bordering on treasonable felony instituted against him at the court in response to years of campaign for the independent Republic of Biafra through IPOB.

Similarly, leader of the Oodua Nation, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, was arrested three weeks after he was declared wanted by the Department of State Service, DSS. The activist and his were were arrested in neighbouring Cotonou, Benin Republic, while trying to travel to Germany.

Igboho was nabbed at the Cardinal Bernardin International Airport in Cotonou, after fleeing Nigeria to evade arrest by Nigeria’s security operatives. He was “disembarked from his plane, arrested by the Beninese police while he was trying to travel to Germany and then transferred to the Cotonou Criminal Brigade,” a local newspaper reported.

While we condemn the promoters of secessionist agitators that seem determined to disturb the peace of the country, we do not believe that the highhanded approach of the authorities is also helpful. It is against this background that Information Nigeria demands that president Buhari acts accordingly and ensure the arrest of Boko haram members, bandits, killer herdsmen, Miyetti Allah and others — the same manner he did to Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho.

Buhari must show the same seriousness in going after bandits kidnapping, robbing, raping and killing innocent citizens in different parts of the country the same way he apprehended Kanu and Igboho.

The arrest of these activists indicates that the Nigerian security system has all the resources needed to tackle insurgency. It requires a lot of diplomacy and technicalities to arrest a target in a foreign land. Nigeria went through all that to arrest Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho.

A government that can go through the pain and diplomatic brouhaha to arrest Nnamdi Kanu abroad, should also find means of putting an end to terrorism here in Nigeria. Why the government has decided to look the other way calls for serious concern.

If the Buhari-led administration can channel all the resources and intelligence at their disposal into insurgency, bandits would have no place to hide in Nigeria.