Nigerian security experts and public affairs analysts have continued to lament the worsening security situation in the country, following the abduction of nearly 400 students of the Government Science Secondary School (GSSS), Kankara in Katsina State by the Boko Haram terrorists on Friday December 11.
This latest abduction coming just days after the Boko Haram beheaded 43 rice farmers in Zabarmari, Borno state, stunned the nation as it happened right when President Muhammadu Buhari was on a visit to Katsina, his home state.
The government of Katsina state through Governor Aminu Bello Masari, informed President Buhari on Monday that his government has started to negotiate with the abductors for the release of the boys apparently for payment of ransom.
BusinessDay put a call to the Director, Army Public Relations, Sagir Musa (Brigadier General) on Tuesday on the rescue arrangements for the kidnapped school boys in Kankara but he did not respond to the call.
Experts have, however, said the government’s resort to negotiation with bandits depicts weakness and helplessness, which allows the bandits to have a field day wreaking havoc on the hapless citizens of the northern region.
Speaking to BusinessDay on Tuesday on the lingering issue, security expert and newspaper columnist, Majeed Dahiru, said “the government is used to paying ransom to bandits, so, if it is a matter of ransom, I am sure they will just pay and get them out.”
Read also: Kankara abduction: Northern coalition moves to Katsina
He however, lamented that payment of ransom will embolden the bandits to continue to carry out their criminal activities. He described the abduction as ‘very daring’ adding that it is perhaps the biggest human abduction in history in Nigeria, even as he warned that the Nigerian state is gradually losing control of its territory to criminal non-state actors.
He also alleged complicity of government in the ongoing crisis, stressing that there is a clear conflict of interests on the path of the President Buhari, who appears to have narrowed his narrative of the crisis to the clashes between the indigenous communities and Fulani Herders, which he said is fundamentally flawed.
“And as long as the president keeps looking at this issue through that narrow prism, the criminal gang that are now making a lot of money from their franchise of kidnapping for ransom and armed robbery on the highway, will always hide under this lacuna of fundamentally flawed narrative by the highest office in the land to continue to perpetrate their dastardly acts,” he said.
He said further that “for the fact that the Buhari government is not willing to clamp down on criminal groups of his own ethnic group affects the performance of the military because they have seen that the government has not seen the need to tackle these people as terrorists. And as long as Buhari is perceived to have this bias, there is nothing the military can do than just maintain some level of peace.”
He called on the government to allow Nigerians to bear legitimate arms to defend themselves in these difficult times.
He said:“We need a Nigerian version of America’s Second Amendment. We need at this point to push for civil armament to such an extent that we are allowed to carry weapons to protect ourselves. Our gun laws should be reviewed to allow Nigerians to bear arms to defend themselves, it has gotten to this point and there is nothing we can do about it.”
Also speaking to BusinessDay on Monday, public intellectual, Katch Ononuju, alleged that the abduction and banditry going on in the north were being perpetrated by the Boko Haram and allied Fulani Militia, with the alleged backing of government, to frighten Nigerians to submit their ancestral land to the displaced Fulani migrants from countries like Mali and Central African Republic.
“The problem is the Fulani bandits. All this is to frighten the population of indigenous Nigerians to grab land, nothing more. They see this as an opportunity for them to make a final push for land because there is nowhere they own land in any place in Nigeria.
He however, warned that the Fulani quest to demand for land through war will only escalate the tension because the indigenous Nigerian people will not allow them take ancestral land belonging to Nigerians.
There are conflicting figures as to the number of boys abducted from the Kankara School. While John Enenche, a Major General and Coordinator of Media Defense Operations said that 333 students are still missing Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu had earlier said only 10 were missing. Enenche said that the army was able to confirm the figures from the principal, adding that the principal said they had 839 students but after the attack, about 500 students were missing.
The governor of Katsina state, Masari also corroborated what Enenche said.
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