Twenty young Nigerians heading to their NYSC orientation were ambushed on the Owerri-Onitsha road at Umunoha, not far from Owerri. They were part of a group of thirty prospective corps members who had traveled from Oyo State. Ten managed to escape. Twenty were taken.
The people who live near that road saw what happened. The federal government, which compels these graduates to serve, could not protect them on a major highway between two significant cities in the South-East.
Columnist Ugoji Egbujo, writing in Premium Times, poses a question that is hard to brush aside: if the administration cannot secure the roads that its own conscripted citizens must travel, what does a second term look like for the rest of us?
Originally published by Premium Times.