SIR: The events of the last two weeks or so in Nigeria have been quite scary and paralysing. The unacceptable murder of police officers doing their job to make the country safe in Nasarawa State, the killing of law enforcement agents in Bama, the forcible release of over 100 prisoners from a prison and the kidnap of Justice Rhodes-Vivour’s wife, daughter and driver were some of the grotesque occurrences that proved conclusively that we have become a banana republic regardless of what those who claim to be at the helms think. The truth is that the political elite have lost it completely. The security agencies are merely groping in the dark, while anarchy reigns supreme.

The murders and kidnappings are unacceptable and those behind them must be fished out and punished swiftly. Let no one politicise the madness that is going on: it is not a case of failure of leadership or of the state (as some fancy), but their absence. The state is not failing in Nigeria; nor has it failed – it has vanished. Welcome to warlordism of the most virulent kind.

Our people must brace up and find an alternative to the absence of the state. We need to do everything necessary to rescue our stateless-country. If we don’t, we are all in for it.

Meanwhile, we must call on the authorities to do everything in their power to rescue the Rhodes-Vivours. They must not be harmed, otherwise we shall hold all those who parade themselves as holding offices in our stateless country responsible.

• Bamidele Aturu,

Surulere, Lagos.