Even when some are relentlessly determined to be politically correct in denying some forms of foreign connections and framing the fiery attacks on Nigerian communities, especially in the North Central zone, as farmers’-herders’ clashes, the chickens on Thursday came home to roost when the nation’s armed forces finally owned up to the fact that foreign herders are, indeed, behind murderous attacks on Plateau and Benue communities.
The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) hinged the spike in violent attacks on Benue and Plateau, including other parts of the country, to destructive foreign elements that have infiltrated the country through its porous borders. The disclosure from the military is a clear admission of what some Nigerians have always known and called on governments to end the deadly attacks unleashed by terrorists shredding the country.
Unfriendly Neighbours
Despite the rebuttal of foreign forces involved in ceaseless tacks against communities by the previous administration, former President Muhammadu Buhari, when called upon by the then governor of Benue State, Dr. Samuel Ortom, to combat these assaults, simply advised the governor to persuade his people to live in peace with their neighbours. How do people live in peace with neighbours plotting to murder them and dispossess them of their ancestral lands?
The story of Plateau is yet another theatre of bloodshed where towns and villages have been conquered and indigenous people sacked to seek refuge in various Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps. Over seven years after some of these villages were sacked, the Plateau State government has not demonstrated enough courage to return the victims to their ancestral homelands.
Lending credence to horrifying attacks by these foreign herders last Thursday, the Director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Markus Kangye, said the herders unleashing these attacks are not from Nigeria, as the Hausa they speak are different from the one being spoken in Nigeria. In his words:
“If somebody from Sokoto, for instance, speaks Hausa, and my friend from Katsina speaks Hausa, you’ll notice some differences. The Hausa language we speak in Nigeria is different from that of Mali, Central Africa Republic and Ghana.”
Self-defence As Unavoidable
When in 2018, the former Minister of Defence under President Olusegun Obasanjo, Lt-Gen. Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma (rtd) called on the citizens to embrace self-defence, some interpreted this as a call for anarchy. According to a report from the Nigerian Security Tracker, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations of the United States of America, 53,418 citizens lost their lives to the killing spree by non-state actors. Despite increasing devoutness by the military to cut down the wings of insecurity, massive killing and horrendous decimation of communities have become the rule, rather than the exception.
Nigeria as a country is now closer to Armageddon than it was in the past. It seems too obvious that the current conventional security measures deployed against these outlaws from the caves are proving inadequate to stop the terror attacks.
After the call by Danjuma on the citizens to rise and defend themselves, it is on record that the former governor of Katsina State and his successor, the Rt. Hon. Bello Masari and Dikko Umar Radda, among other governors, have repeated such calls to stave off these acts of banditry that are sending crippling fears down the spines of Nigerians.
In yet another effort to build up resistance against violent attacks, the Adeola Ajayi-led Department of State Services (DSS) is mounting pressure on states to commence community policing in a bid to build bulwarks of defence by ensuring that besieged communities are able to provide the first line of defence before the deployment of security personnel. Instead of stressing the urgency in tackling the insecurity across the country and getting the people to act in unity, Danjuma’s advice for arming the citizens to fight insecurity was misinterpreted as a call to anarchy.
Now that the perpetrators of insecurity are almost taking over the nation, the time to focus on General Danjuma’s call for self-defence and the recommendations by the DSS for the adoption of community policing is highly imperative. The need to democratise the security apparatus has become unavoidable due to the absence of enough boots on the ground. The present number of security personnel is grossly incapable of securing the citizens and their property. No nation in the world can provide adequate security for its people. Taking into consideration that security forces alone cannot provide security for our teeming population, an internal solution that will involve the citizens in crushing the criminal elements threatening our peace must commence in earnest.
Guzzler Of Funds
We must avoid a situation where insecurity is turned into a drain pipe to provide limitless funds to rogue elements in the military. We have witnessed a situation where corrupt military officers have been tried on account of corruptly amassing so much funds. Resolving the present insecurity may not be a simple task, but engaging the grassroots to serve as critical stakeholders by arming some of them to serve as defenders of the communities should be embraced for the security of our people. More critical is the dealing with reprobate elements that are engaged in collaborating with bandits and informants in perpetrating crimes.
If Nigeria must succeed in tackling the grave threats against our survival, then, we must empower local communities to stand up against these agents of terror who have found safe havens in the nation’s ungoverned spaces. Unlike in the past when the flame of patriotism burnt unending; the love for money and easy living has turned our youths into commercial motes. Allowing security votes to be yet another oil bloc is a recipe for endless insecurity.