Traditional rulers under fire

Last week, the organisation I work for, SBM Intelligence, released an infographic about attacks on traditional rulers in Nigeria over the last decade. It is an important graphic because it shows just how even the traditional institutions, which at least had some organic authority in most parts of Nigeria, have come under strain, a strain that is aiming for their legitimacy.

The attacks have become worse in Northern Nigeria. For example, the village head of Madaka in Niger State, Alhaji Zakari Yau, was kidnapped on 18 December 2020. Alhaji Yau was eventually murdered by his abductors. The kidnap that led to his murder was not the first. Alhaji Yau was first kidnapped in September 2020 before being released and then kidnapped again the next December. His abductors killed him on Christmas Day. Alhaji Yau’s murder brought the number of people killed by bandits in Madaka in 2020 to four. But Alhaji Yau was just one of several traditional rulers – district and village heads – who had become the target of attacks by armed groups and various kidnap-for-ransom syndicates across the region, especially in the North-West and North-Central geopolitical zones of the country.

There is no doubt that Nigeria is facing its worst security crisis since the civil war. There are many security analysts, including me, who actually argue that even including the civil war, the country has faced no worse since the civil war (with the exception of a Biafran raid in Okene in August 1967, and the Biafran advance to Ore also in August 1967), only affected the South-East and South-South geopolitical zones.

One of the things that makes this security situation worse is how widespread, and how democratised it is. Traditional rulers of different classes, who were hitherto safe, have become victims of attacks by terror groups. On 15 January 2020, the convoy of Umaru Bubaram, Emir of Potiskum, was attacked at Mararaban Jos along the Kaduna-Zaria highway, and six people were killed, including four of the Emir’s aides. Emir Bubaram was on his way to Zaria in Kaduna State when the incident took place around Fandatio village. It was later revealed that about a hundred people were also abducted in the incident. There have been no reports about their rescue.

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On 18 December last year, the Emir of Kaura Namoda in Zamfara State, Alhaji Sanusi Muhammad Asha escaped death while two palace guards, his driver, three policemen and two others were killed by gunmen along the Zaria-Funtua road. The gunmen had attacked and killed the eight persons on their way back to Kaura Namoda from Abuja.

This is not to say that the South has been immune: on 26 November 2020, about three weeks before the attack on Alhaji Asha, gunmen shot dead a prominent traditional ruler in Ondo State, Oba Israel Adeusi who was the Olufon of Ifon. Oba Adeusi was returning to his town from Akure, the Ondo State capital where he went for a meeting with other frontline traditional rulers in the state.

What these three examples have in common, is that the victims of the attacks are first-class monarchs. A second similarity is that all three were attacked on major highways which speaks to another dynamic in Nigeria’s security problem: the safety crisis on major roads.

However, village or district heads have not been as lucky as the other two first-class monarchs earlier mentioned. Kidnappers who attack communities in the North also attack community heads in their homes, compared to attacks on first-class rulers which happen on the roads. The safety level of the palaces of these first-class monarchs are higher compared to what is obtainable on highways where they become fair game, and definitely better and well-fortified compared to where district heads live.

Between 2019 and 2021, there have been at least 34 incidents of attacks and abductions of district heads and their families in northern Nigeria. A total of 64 people have been killed, 11 of them being district heads. In some cases, as in the Zakari Yau case, they were abducted more than once, an indication that the ransom value may be higher than regular community members.

Attention must now turn to why these attacks against village and district heads and traditional rulers persist. You see, these leaders typically have greater legitimacy than elected officers at local, state and federal level who are seen by the people as distant at best, or irredeemably corrupt and illegitimate at worst. This means that these local leaders are in a position to rally the people against criminal activities in their communities, and also galvanise the people towards something greater. Their words carry weight. By attacking and killing them, terror groups end up leaving communities in disarray in order to step in and control them by force.

Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence