by Lateef Adewole
It took me many hours thinking how to begin this article, what to write and to what extent. I am overwhelmed with the preponderance of insecurities across the country, especially in the northern parts, for which the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, is gradually joining the epicentres. “Like play like play”, what seemed so far from the seat of power, is now so close. “Odo ti a foju rena, o mo ti fe gbe ni lo bayi” (an underrated stream is about to sweep human beings away now).
If I have had worries and really got scared about how insecurities were spreading in Nigeria before now, it has never been as now. I was living in the Northern region when boko haram attacks began to escalate in 2008. I moved on transfers from Abuja to Kaduna to Kano. I travelled across the states in the region, while I lived and worked there for about ten years. I was in Kano when the attempted take over of the city happened in January 2012. We lived in fear since then till things got better. Yet, I could travel from Kano to Katsina to Jigawa, Kaduna, Bauchi and all. Abuja was the safe haven, despite few incidents of bomb blasts of UN building, Police Headquarters, Yanyan, Madalla, all within and around the FCT.
They were pushed back as we moved towards 2015 general elections. That continued after President Buhari took over in 2015. The early progress made and successes achieved by the new administration was so impressive that the government started boasting of ending or decimating the terrorists. They called the survivors “rag-tag”, who could not fight or attack anyone again except by guerilla war on soft targets. Many would not forget Alhaji Lai Muhammed, whose job is to communicate such information. He was grandstanding as he addressed the press. It was at that time he invented the popular “technically defeated”. That was how he described the victory over the insurgents then.
While it was a happy thing to hear such news then, a person like me who look deeper into issues, took the information with cautious optimism. Especially when the propensity to lie or not tell the whole truth by most government and public officials is taken cognisance of. I took such news with my eyes wide open. Truly, the fights subsided for a period. Everybody was happy.
Based on a trend I had observed with the fights against the insurgents, at such period of lull in the attacks, they often retreated, regrouped, reinforced to come back stronger and relaunch. I waited for that trend. Boko Haram was successfully confined to three states of Yobe, Adamawa and Borno. With time, they were only visible in Borno, particularly at the fringes and border towns with Niger and Chad. This was celebrated at every opportunity by government.
Immediately President Buhari was sworn-in in 2015, I also noticed another development. There used to be farmer-herder clashes across the country, as a result of cows destroying farmlands in past years before 2015. The majority of the cow herders are Fulani. Previously, when such clashes happened, the community leaders tried to find ways to resolve them by asking the Fulani herdsmen to compensate the farmers, something they gladly did.
But since 2015, there seemed to be some kind of arrogance that entered them. Small altercation which they used to resolve peacefully before became more violent. They began to trample on other people’s rights to their farms. They move their cows through people’s farms with impunity and destroyed them in the process. Where the owners complained, they attack them. Gradually, stories of them carrying guns began to spread.
Rather than the government of the day to look deeply into this, it was politicised. I remember how the spokesmen of government will dismiss such claims as false and that they were made to tarnish the image of the government and President Buhari because he is a Fulani, by the opposition who lost out in the elections. Such irresponsible, shallow and hurried ways of dismissing the claims worried me. I wrote about it some years ago.
The first pronounced mass murder took place when we woke up to the massacre of 72 people in Benue state on crossover night in January 1st 2018. I knew the monsters have tasted blood and there will be no going back. There was outrage across the land and around the world. Yet, the government was irresponsible, reckless and handled it with kids glove. The president even described it as a “clash between two parties”. In which clash does a group is ambushed and killed massively in their sleep overnight while the attackers suffered no casualty?
All the security agents deployed to the place were lackluster in their response since the body language of the president spoke otherwise. The then IGP, Ibrahim Idris, who was directed to go there, only breezed in and out, and went back to his village in the neighboring state of Nasarrawa, to have fun. This began the obvious mismanagement of the mass attacks by Fulani herdsmen who were accused of being responsible for it. It never stopped since then.
Same began to happened in other states in large scales. Zamfara state that was ongoing became worsened. Same as in Kaduna south. Before you knew it, they were termed bandits. Some were said to be cattle rustlers. And the killing continued. With such free pass, they continued to expand their territories and I believe many groups started operating in different states. It spread like wild fire.
Another dimension was introduced with the massive kidnapping of Jangebe school girls, in the manner of Chibok girls. The way the same were returned within three to four days was unprecedented. Whatever was done to secure the release of the students must have fuelled the kidnapping for ransom business on a large scale as that became their new modus operandi. The die was cast. So many other mass abduction of students have taken place that I have lost count. Mass kidnappings of travellers also began, making the roads to gradually become unsafe for commuters. The bandits took over important roads, among which Abuja-Kaduna expressway is the most prominent.
Yet, the government always give one excuse or another. In the last five years, I have written many articles on insecurities, particularly as they affect the north. I was so concerned because the region is another home to me. It used to be the safest region in the past. How it suddenly became a captured region is what befuddled me. In all of the ineptitude shown in curbing these, no one has ever been sacked for non-performance. No one has been queried. No one has been called to account. The only programmed repetitive overused statements we have heard from the president was that: “he is sad, pained or shocked by what happened, expressed regret, set up committee to look into it, summoned the security chiefs, give them directive or ultimatum to fish out the criminals”, and he goes back to sleep. Nothing or not much ever happened after.
Let me make something clear, I do not believe that our military and other security forces have become so weak that they cannot flush out and finished off what the government called “rag-tag” terrorists. These are the same armed forces that usually sent personnel to international peace keeping operations and they were always exceptional. They are given accolades and many of them have won medals as individuals or group. So, what happened to them at home? Ineptitude or compromised or complicit leadership; both military and political.
Most often, every battalion is as effective as its leader. When the signal coming from the C-in-C and his body language were not assertive to deal with the killer Fulani herdsmen turned bandits, the armed forces leaderships are bound to be circumspect and act accordingly. This is still a compromise. Armed forces should be loyal to the country first of all before their loyalty to the president. Where they observed conflict of interest, the loyalty to the country should override any other interest. But this is not the case in Nigeria. It seems everyone, including the armed forces, are there to serve the president and his interest first before any other.
How can anyone explain that in spite of the humongous amount of money that have been allocated and spent on security in the budgets and outside the budgets, the security agencies will look helpless? According to the record, trillions naira and billions of dollars have been spent on defence in the last seven years. An extrabudgetary spending of 496 million dollars was done for Super Tucanos from the USA in April 2018. Since they arrived, the game has not changed and table has not turned against the bandits who were later designated as terrorists, after much pressure on the president.
It has gone so bad that the terrorists now have the audacity to threaten the president of Nigeria, a sitting governor and other political office holders. In a recent video they released last week where they tortured the remaining captives from the train attack of March 28, 2022, they threatened to kidnap President Buhari and Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna state. As if that was not shocking enough, it happened that the president was not aware of it after many days that it has been online and in the news! One would be tempted to ask what is the president aware of at all?
Such revelation betrayed the suspicion of many that the president has been “captured” by the cabal, and he is not made to know about what is happening outside his coveted, comfortable and safe haven in Aso Rock. Otherwise, it is doubtful that he would be comfortable and aloof as he always seems everytime he is seen in public. But, does it mean the president does not read independently of whatever he is told? The world is now a global village and it is at each person’s palm with the availability of mobile phones. If this is the case, then, we have bigger problem on our hands. The suspicion that we are being ruled by proxy looks real.
In this year alone, the series of audacious attacks by these terrorists are incredible. On March 28, the terrorists attack an evening train going to Kaduna from Abuja. They kidnapped hundreds of passengers and there are still about 61 persons left in their custody after many have been released after they allegedly paid ransom in hundreds of millions of naira. They threatened to sell off the rest into slavery after they might have killed some others.
At the same period, Kaduna Airport was attacked. Just three weeks ago, on the 5th of July, they attacked Kuje prison where over 800 inmates were released, including top terrorists in custody. Same day, the terrorists attacked the advanced convoy of President Buhari in Dutsinma in Katsina state, on their way to Daura. It was stated that one of those terrorists who were freed spoke in that video. Last week, the Guards Brigade, the battalion of soldiers responsible for protecting the president was ambushed in Kwali, while on patrol. Two officers and six soldiers were killed while some others were injured.
On Monday, there was the scare that the Nigerian Law School in Bwari, FCT will be attacked. Same as schools within the FCT and environs. The Call-to-Bar ceremony, which was to take place at the Nigerian Law School in Bwari, had to be moved to a safer location in Abuja. The FCT Administration had to declare all schools closed. Even before that official closure, parents were already removing their children from schools. No one wants to live the same experience as the parents of those students who were kidnapped across the states in the north. There was another attack of military checkpoints at Zuba, on Thursday night. They were successfully repelled.
The totality of all of these depicts a country under siege. A country about to be captured by terrorists. If the FCT which used to and should be the safest place in Nigeria, is now gripped with palpable fear of terrorist attack, with leadership who seems clueless and citizens that are helpless, then, the country is failing. All these seem to be giving fillip to insinuation about sinister agenda, that elections may not take place in 2023 and that terrorists could take over the seat of power and government, before then. I hope all these will never come to pass. It is scary!
The earlier the political leadership, particularly President Buhari, who is the C-in-C, takes charge of the country and the security situation, the better for all of us. Many people found it laughable when news broke out that the president was going to deliver lecture on security in Liberia. Is that not a big joke? As Yorubas will say; “eni ma d’aso fun ni, t’orun re la ko ko wo” (he who plans to cloth another, we first need to see what he is wearing). How could a president, whose country has virtually been overrun by bandits, terrorists, militants and all kinds of criminals, go to teach other country how to keep their people and country safe? That’s ludicrous.
As far back as 2012, former President Jonathan said terrorists have infiltrated the government and our security forces. We were dealing majorly with only boko haram then. Now, we have bigger problems on our hands with bandits turned terrorists. The former bandits who enjoyed luxury of doing as they wished, with little or no consequence for so long, have transmuted to terrorists with the infiltration by boko haram and ISWAP in their ranks. They now carry out full-blown terrorism instead of the previous kidnap-for-ransom only. They attacked government infrastructures, want to highjack and overthrow the government.
The insecurities have become lucrative business. Corruption strife in the management of security funds. There are also bad elements who served as informants and suppliers to terrorists within the forces and civil population. This is the only explanation for many ambushes of our military on assignments many times. Some soldiers have been caught actively involved in the kidnappings.
An Emir in Zamfara state gave chieftancy title to a wanted terrorist kingpin. Another is given airtime on reputable international broadcasting station. All these have implications. Lack of cooperation and support to the security agencies by civil population who hoard intelligence. Many get frustrated by the inaction of the security agencies after they gave them information about terrorists and their activities. They saw no action until attacks eventually happened.
After all the money purportedly spent on the defence so far, there is no excuse for non-performance but for complicity. A voice note of a wounded soldier on social media where he narrated their encounter with terrorists within the week gave me hope. He spoke in high spirit despite being wounded at the battle front. He narrated how they took the fight to the terrorists hiding inside the bush in Bwari and plummeted them. The terrorists beat retreat despite their preparedness while the military pursued them into the forest. This showed that we have gallant fighters who only need to be inspired and encouraged by the government by providing them with necessary arms, ammunition and look after their welfare.
They should also take the fight to the terrorists and not wait until they attacks after which they respond. The terrorists are not as powerful and invincible as they want the citizens to believe and could definitely not be more in number and more capable than our troops put together. They need to be levelled out as soon as possible if the country has to survive. A threat to the seat of power is a threat to the country as a whole. That cannot be acceptable. Mr. President needs to wake up. He needs to be aware of what is happening in the country and stop junketing around the globe. Nigerians did not elect him for other unelected people to govern them by proxy while he will not be aware. That’s unacceptable. Enough is enough!
If he is as tired of leading the country as he hinted in his speech to the progressive governors who paid him a visit during the last sallah festival, he should do the honorable thing and resign. He does not have to wait until he is being threatened with impeachment by the senators. Holding on to power and sleeping on duty, while the country goes to ruins is unpatriotic. He should do the needful.
Security is everyone’s responsibility. Many state governors have lost control of their states while they continued to take monthly security votes. What is the essence of governance? For the security and welfare of the citizens, in which they have failed woefully. The people should also be patriotic and responsible citizens. When they see something, they should say something. Despite the frustration, they should provide information to the security agencies.
The armed forces should also live up to their responsibilities. Citizens ceded their right to use coercive force to them. As the DG of NSA, Maj. Gen. Babagana Mungono said that the citizens are gravitating towards self-help to protect themselves. If this becomes the norm, they would have lost the right to legal violence. Chaos and anarchy will be the result. They won’t be able to manage it. Nigerians cannot continue to look helpless while terrorists have field day kidnapping, maiming and killing them and watch as they rape their women. That cannot continue forever. Something will give way soon, if they do not pull the situation back immediately.
May God continue to protect us and guide us aright.
God Bless Nigeria.
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