Nobel Laureate Woke Soyinka has again asked President Muhammadu Buhari to “seek help” in combating insecurity in the country and stop improvising with human lives.

Mr Soyinka, in a statement on Saturday, said young citizens who are the future of Nigeria should not be “served as ritual on the altar of a failing state” under the watch of Mr Buhari.

“To this government we repeat the public cry: Seek Help. Stop improvising with human lives,” Mr Soyinka said. “Youth–that is, the future – should not serve as ritual offering on the altar of a failing state.”

Mr Soyinka’s statement comes bare 24 hours after three students of Greenfield University Kaduna were killed by their abductors. No fewer than 30 abducted students of Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Kaduna, who were abducted on March 11 are also still in captivity.

Lamenting insecurity in the country, Mr Soyinka referred to Beslan school siege in which over 1000 students were abducted and over 300 of them were eventually killed, warning Nigerians to brace up.

“One’s greatest fear, with this latest feat of cowardly savagery is that the nation must brace itself for a Beslan scenario, yet strive to avoid Nigeria becoming Africa’s Cherchnya,” Mr Soyinka warned. “Those who have been proven weak and incapable must learn to swallow their vain pride and seek help. Again, this is no new counselling, but of course the dog that will get lost no longer heeds the hunter’s whistle. I envy no one the task ahead, terminating the toxic harvest of past derelictions. Blame laying is for later.’’

On Friday, Garba Shehu, Mr Buhari’s spokesman, blamed the Nigerian media for reporting insecurity in the country like something new just to rubbish the incumbent government.

Mr Shehu said there is a deliberate plot to make insecurity a narrative in the run up to the 2023 general elections.

However, since Mr Buhari assumed office in 2015, insecurity has taken a frightening trajectory with Nigerians witnessing much kidnapping for ransom and killings, while the government continues to issue lame duck warnings to bandits and Boko Haram terrorists.

In the past five months, bandits have launched coordinated attacks on communities, killing and abducting school students in hundreds across Katsina, Niger and Zamfara State.