For many years, threats and the deployment of brute force have not helped in resolving the intractable twin security challenges in the North. While the Federal Government issues threats upon threats, the blood-sucking elements called bandits and insurgent Boko Haram are scaling up their bloody campaign. Massive rates of illiteracy and poverty provide willing recruits for the enemies of the state. So, why shouldn’t the government change tactics? But come ooo; how competent are those superintending over the nation’s security sector? One politician appears to be eating his cake and still having it. Is he a political hermaphrodite? His story is like that of a tail-wagging the dog!
Why not crush insurgency and banditry with education, not threats?
The other day, President Bola Tinubu directed the military apparatchiks to proceed to Sokoto State to stem the tide of bandits’ activities and to put the enemies to rout.
The presidential directive, which was widely publicised, has been criticised as lacking the discreteness such deployment deserved.
“For some years now, mass burials have become the order of the day in Nigeria; we are talking about peacetime as there is no defined war in the country.”
Some retired military personnel said that such directives were supposed to have been made secretly but the result was made public to avoid giving the enemies the opportunity to ambush personnel.
In the last few days, bizarre things have happened in Nigeria’s security space. The activities of bandits and terrorists have become all the more insulting and provoking, particularly in the north.
Perhaps you have not heard or read about it. Last Sunday, reports had it that over 34 people were massacred in Yobe, a state in Nigeria’s North East. But unofficial figures said it was over 80 people that were killed and many others missing. Boko Haram insurgents were said to have invaded a community, riding on over 50 motorcycles.
The president has also threatened that those behind the Yobe massacre would be brought to book.
Read also: Foreign military base, bandits and northern leaders
In recent times, some communities in the North Western States of Zamfara, Kaduna, and Sokoto, among others, have been taken over by bandits and insurgents. These elements now moderate the lifestyle of the people in these states.
It was gathered that men are giving out their wives and daughters, willy-nilly, to be slept with by these insurgents and Boko Haram elements to avoid being killed, among other intolerable provocations they are being subjected to.
In these places, taxes and all manner of levies are imposed on the natives by the bandits to be allowed to go to their farms to cultivate and harvest their crops.
The central government in Abuja seems not to understand the criticality of the menace and excruciating pain to which the citizens who live in such places are being subjected. On a consistent basis, dozens of people are killed, and the only response from the government is threat.
For some years now, mass burials have become the order of the day in Nigeria; we are talking about peacetime as there is no defined war in the country.
Non-state actors appear to be holding the country to ransom. Today, these elements have become so emboldened that they make videos and send them out to YouTube and TikToks, yet Nigeria’s security agencies are unable to track down anything.
People are being kidnapped on a daily basis, and hefty ransom money is being paid in cash, yet these elements successfully collect the ransom without being arrested.
There seems to be no change in strategy in the way security chiefs of the Muhammadu Buhari era carried out their duties and what is going on now. They have remained reactive and never proactive.
How, for instance, would an entourage of Boko Haram insurgents riding on motorcycles escape the prying eyes of security agencies, or is there no presence of security in such places or no intelligence gathering equipment working in those areas at a time some roads in the country are locked down by an uncountable number of checkpoints?
Read also: From Boko Haram, to killer herdsmen – Farmers, IDPs cry out
What does it profit a country to continue to claim a big nation with vast areas that are ungoverned? This is why many citizens have suggested that it may benefit Nigeria better to be split into three to four countries that can be governed easily.
The question is, those communities in Zamfara, Yobe, and Sokoto that are under the thumb of bandits and insurgents, are they still part of Nigeria in the real sense of the word?
Other than issuing threats every other day, wouldn’t it rather be nice if the Federal Government wore its thinking cap on how to permanently end the activities of these monsters or reduce them to the barest minimum?
One area to solve the problem is to ensure that education is improved in the Northern region. In March last year, the Basic Education Performance Ranking highlighted the performance of public schools across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
According to the report, the 11 performing states were Ondo (98 percent), FCT (96 percent), Ebonyi (90 percent), Rivers (85 percent), Imo (80 percent), Anambra (79 percent), Enugu (77 percent), Ekiti (77 percent), Bayelsa (75 percent), Delta (75 percent), and Lagos (75 percent).
The report had it that Gombe, Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara States did not score any points. It meant that the four states did not meet minimum basic education recommendations, and the majority of their learners neither have fundamental literacy nor numeracy skills required to function in society.
Added to this grim reality is the high poverty rate in the north. It is said that 65 percent of the poor (86 million people) live in the North. There is limited access to education and basic infrastructure such as electricity, clean drinking water, and sanitation, and job prospects are few.
For these reasons, the north has continued to be a breeding ground for elements that could easily be recruited by bandits and Boko Haram.
Unless these unfortunate realities are addressed urgently too, the government will continue to shout itself hoarse with threats without achieving any result.
Read also: Nigeria targets exportation of arms, ammunition – Matawalle
Matawalle: Physician who could not heal himself!
Remember Bello Matawalle? He is a former governor of Zamfara State. Now, minister of state, defence. How President Tinubu settled for him as defence minister has not stopped to amaze many citizens.
While as governor, he ran from pillar to post, seeking the intervention of the then chief occupant of the Aso Rock Villa. While he presided over Zamfara, there were many cases of mass abduction of students and other indigenes by bandits. When he was governor, he negotiated and had a dialogue with bandits.
In November last year, he chided the immediate past administration of Muhammadu Buhari, saying it did not properly tackle insecurity. Now that the ball is in his court, how far?
A current commissioner in the state was quoted as saying that the former governor granted asylum to bandits and gave them Hilux vans.
When did he acquire the competence to fight insecurity at the national level, or was his appointment just political consideration to fill the slot of Zamfara State?
Now, the menace of bandits and Boko Haram has continued, and the minister is leading the charge against the enemies. Do you read my mind?
The other day, bandits were celebrating the “capture” and cannibalisation of two armoured personnel carriers (APCs) belonging to the Nigerian military.
Matawalle explained that the APCs were abandoned by military personnel in water-logged areas to avoid being attacked.
Many Nigerians wonder why such costly fighter vehicles should be so abandoned.
Sadly, this happened in Matawalle’s state. In climes where the government works the way it should, many heads would have rolled over the insult of abandoning the highly priced equipment and the caricature that the insurgents are making over it.
Read also: 2027: Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso merger talks ongoing – PDP spokesman
As the tail continues to wag the dog in PDP
In what seems a case of tail wagging the dog, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and immediate past governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, recently served a serious notice on governors of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The governors attracted the ire of the FCT minister for daring to tell the embattled Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, “no shaking; we are solidly behind you.”
Although the National Working Committee (NWC) had flared up at the threat, saying that “nobody is above the party,” many Nigerians have continued to be amazed at the extent of power Wike is wielding in the party.
The man is standing astride two opposing parties, effectively eating his cake and still having it!
The former governor was accused of anti-party activities, yet he was calling the shots at the PDP state congress at the party’s secretariat in Port Harcourt last Saturday.
How the matter will be resolved eventually remains to be seen.
But this is a real acid test for PDP and its governors who, like primary school pupils, seemed to have been sufficiently cowed by their headmaster. It is, indeed, a trying time for the umbrella party.
