After over a decade of insurgency in the North-east, there has been a significant escalation of terrorism in the North-west zone of the country. From Kaduna, Zamfara, Niger, Katsina and Sokoto states, reports of killings, kidnappings, the destruction of properties and other forms of degradation of human lives continue to cascade ad nauseam. It is not, therefore, shocking that a recent report attributed to a UN study, claims that 24 terror-cells exist in 30 forests in the region, with many of them in Katsina State.
The figure, whether exact or a learned conjecture, signifies that it is not in doubt that there are recurrent and widespread acts of barbarity evident in kidnappings, killings and the raping of women and teenagers in the zone. Their inherent anguish and lamentations are devastating. No fresher evidence could be more hideous than last Thursday’s kidnapping of 100 pupils of LEA primary school; and another 187 students of a college – all in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
A total of 287 young Nigerians were corralled into a nearby forest by the terrorists, without any intelligence for security operatives to immediately trail them and rescue the victims. The dust of protests from residents of the same Chikun LGA, who barricaded the Abuja-Kaduna Highway a few days earlier, over incessant terror attacks, had yet to settle, when this latest dastardly incident occurred.
Kaduna and Borno states are yoked together in last Thursday’s harvest of bestialities. Boko Haram terrorists abducted hundreds of people from an Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp last week. Initially, 200 people were reportedly involved. But Amnesty International’s aggregate is over 400. The two ugly episodes serve as cruel reminders of the 2014 abduction of Chibok School girls. About 100 of them are still unaccounted for. The abductions are a brutal indictment of the country’s security system. Needless to say, the IDP camps ought to be government’s sites for the safe custody for these unfortunate Nigerians.
Kidnapping is an act of terror, according to the country’s anti-terrorism statute, yet the authorities seem to have lost sight of this fact.
President Bola Tinubu reacted angrily to the two tragedies, directing the rescue of the victims. “Nothing else is acceptable to me” he insists. But the First Lady, Remi Tinubu, was even angrier, describing the terrorists as “animals” who deserve capital punishment. She called on state governments to see to this. These are good vibes. But immediate result-oriented action is what is needed, rather than rhetoric.
Echoes of these savageries were loud in the chambers of the House of Representatives penultimate week, when one of its members, Aliyu Abubakar from Katsina State, moved a motion for President Bola Tinubu to take action in neutralising the terror-cells and halt this gradual but steady descent into the abyss of barbarism in Nigeria. Similarly, the Senate resolved last Wednesday that the National Assembly leadership will meet the President over the escalating insecurity across the country. A senator, Emmanuel Udende from Benue North, had decried how 54 persons from his constituency were massacred a few days ago by assailants who remain elusive.
In a fit of rage and helplessness, residents recently blocked the Dutsinma-Katisna Highway and burnt tyres over the incessant banditry and kidnappings in Bichi, Wurma and neighbouring communities. Early in January, bandits emerged from the forest and shot sporadically at a convoy of vehicles carrying traders to the market. Six of these traders were killed.
The sadism was reminiscent of the killing of nine persons in October 2023, when the headquarters of Danmusa Local Government Area was attacked; among the dead was a former caretaker chairman, Dauda Mai Iyali. Apart from Damusa, Kankara, Jibia, Safana and Batsari LGAs are others under this terror siege. Governor Dikko Radda of Katsina State has recruited 1,500 Community Watch Corps, who are armed to reinforce regular security personnel. But the level of the monstrosity is beyond his ken, with the security under the remit of the Federal Government as encapsulated in the Constitution.
As villagers and traders are easy targets of these attacks, so are students. Late last year, five female students of Katsina State University were kidnapped, an evil fate 24 students of Federal University of Gusau suffered too. The Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Kaduna State chapter, Joseph Hayub, recently disclosed that N250 million was paid as ransom to terrorists for the release of 121 students of Baptist High School, kidnapped in 2021. The last of the victims, Treasure Ayuba, escaped from the kidnappers’ den recently, prompting the CAN chairman to heave a sigh of relief and visit Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State, where he made the disclosure.
Forests like the Kwiambana Games Reserve, Madada and others that straddle many states in the region are behemoths in this crisis, in the absence of enough forest rangers, or their lack, to checkmate the activities of terrorists who have made these nebulous territories their hideouts. Underworld kingpins like Ali Kachallah and Godo Gida, with a large army of non-state actors, operating from these fortresses need to be taken out. Virtually, all state governors from the zone have visited the president to solicit for more military or security presence in their domains to route these criminals.
Given how these terrorists migrate from one state to another when security forces attack them, well-coordinated and simultaneous aerial bombardments of the forests, guided by intelligence, for maximum effect, is now a necessity. Marching 287 students into a forest, as it has just happened in Kaduna, is emblematic of zero security presence in the area, as in most rural communities across the federation. This is a deplorable situation! In the South-east, Biafran irredentists are active in their various cells, killing mostly security personnel and citizens who dare them.
It appears governments at all levels are no longer conscious or mindful of the sanctity of life as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, as amended. Section 33 (1) states, “Every person has a right to life and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life…” This inalienable right, we dare say, has been lost in Nigeria.
President Tinubu has acknowledged that vast areas of the country are not policed or are under the authority of non-state actors, evident in his recent acquiescence to devolve policing in the country. With Nigeria’s unwholesome experience in the last two decades, and no sign of insecurity abating, Tinubu has to effectively walk his talk: “We shall reform our security doctrine and its architecture.” This was a self-imposed task on his inauguration on 29 May, 2023.
Perhaps, unknown to him, security on his watch is ineluctably gravitating towards the Muhammadu Buhari regime’s highway of hopelessness. In January, a coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) put the number of Nigerians killed since Tinubu assumed office at 2,423, while 1,872 were kidnapped. Initial signals lent credence to this prognosis, with 629 Nigerians reportedly killed within his first 45 days on the seat, as claimed by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, quoting SMB Intelligence data. Information from the Nigerian National Tracker indicates that 89,920 people were killed in the first seven years of the Buhari administration – from 29 May, 2015 to May 2022. These were Nigerians failed by the state and nobody is held to account.
All are agreed that: “The security architecture of Nigeria has failed woefully” as Ahmad Lawan, a former President of the Ninth Senate, put it last week when the mayhem in Benue State was debated in the red chambers. This is a crass failure of political leadership and violence to the Constitution, in view of the primacy of the protection of lives, in the hierarchy of governance.
At Tinubu’s instance, a committee has been set up to plumb the depths of setting up state police in the country. The sub-national governments are in concert with this; and they have to work, putting in place granite legislative and administrative frameworks. The new policing paradigm must include a mechanism for the federal government to seize control in any state where the state police are abused, just as the National Assembly does in taking over the functions of a state house of assembly in a time of emergency. Nigeria is a federation, and should be made to function accordingly.
Above all, the President must excise the duplicitous DNA of the Buhari regime that made it shield 400 Bureau de change operators, who are alleged terror financiers, from prosecution. These purported criminal elements were identified by the UAE. Those who thrive on terror entrepreneurship are oxygen to this evil enterprise. Tinubu, prosecute them and see the difference. Otherwise, insecurity of more embarrassing dimensions will spiral.
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