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Every Nigerian knows the difference between safety and insecurity. They know when their life or environment is in danger or being threatened. They are aware of the years when house breaking was the in thing. That was when local thieves armed with hammer and other tools to break into houses, shops and stores during odd hours. With development, youths started acquiring illegal arms for the main purpose of indulging in robbery. Houses were brazenly robbed, cars were snatched, banks were violently robbed while bullion vans were not spared.
These armed robbers transformed into vicious and very dangerous robbers and even held sway as kingpins, territorial and cross boarder robbery lords like, Shina Rambo, Lawrence Anini , Oyenusi, Kayode Williams, Abiodun Egunjobi, Obidiozo and many others.
States like Lagos, Ogun, Edo, Enugu, Kaduna, Benue and Cross Rivers were under their siege. The capacity of the Police was severely tested but sequel to dogged determination of top officers like Sir Mike Okiro, MD Abubakar, Marvel Akpoyibo, Parry Osayande, Late Gambo Jimeta and Tafa Balogun, they nipped the rising tide of armed robbery in the bud. With public cooperation, that era saw the police though under military administrations sang songs of victory. The media feasted daily on the end results of these vicious criminals that facilitated the death of hundreds of innocent Nigerians while property worth millions of Naira were carted away. With many of the robbers either killed during encounters with the police or arrested, prosecuted and jailed, Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief.
Years later, administration changed from the military to civilian administration in 1999 and when Nigerians were anticipating a respite in criminal activities, a new type of criminal activity was already brewing as members of the society started witnessing acts of kidnapping. This became the new wave of high profile criminality as security agencies started studying the modus of operation .
It became a major security challenge in the country, keeping security heads very busy while fear became the order of the day in major state capitals in the country.
Experts believe that by effectively carrying out a kidnap operation, criminals are better opportune to dictate the amount for the ransom instead of the blind attack on victims during robbery operations that does not yield the desired or anticipated result. This type of criminality gained more impetus until Police was able to effect the arrest of notorious kidnapper, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, popularly known as ‘Evans the billionaire kidnapper’.
Unfortunately, instead of the crime abetting, the rising number of unemployed youths in the country further excercebated the situation in the country. Even with the gradual decline of armed robbery around the country, coincidentally, a radical ideological group known as Boko Haram surfaced in the North Eastern part of the country and their dastardly activities earned them the toga of terrorists. They operated around the Borno, Yobe, Lake Chad axis killing, abducting and destroying both government and private properties. As it is usual for politicians to capitalize on trending national problems as key to their political campaign, so a former military General and former Head of State Muhammadu Buhari got elected as President under the auspices of All Progressive Congress ( APC) party, Buhari while campaigning promised the electorate of ensuring that corruption and insecurity would be a thing of the past, if elected.
Six years after his election in 2015, insecurity seems to be the channel to Nigeria’s “ End Time”. When the holy scripture described the end time, it points at a perilous time that would signify the the end of the ages. Could the present rise in insecurity occurrences around the country be attributable to what is popularly known as “ End -Time” . Despite the recognizable impact of the military. The end of a thing could connote either an abrupt end or a catastrophic end. When a man gets to the end of his journey , it is either the journey was fruitful or it ended disastrously. Nigeria is eating more insecurity than it can chew.
From the north, to the West and East down to the South, pockets of insecurity daily envelopes these parts of the country exhibiting traits of terrorism yet the government ignores several enlightened and articulate calls in this direction. Many argue that both Boko Haram and the Bandits are equal to both the Talibans and Al-Qaeda, both had the same ideology and operated in the same country. The Nigerian bandits (God knows who named them thus) cannot be exempted nor could the group abhor being tagged as terrorist group. Among the elementary consideration in designating a group as terrorists include the fact tgat they act as a group under a leadership with the sole aim of using the tool of terror to actualise their ideological objective. Secondly, they act to actualise their self determination and with the concept of forcing others to comply with every of their ideology. The Nigerian bandits can therefore not exculcate itself from designating her as a terrorist group. After all, it had over the years formed itself as a dangerous and violent group with a leader that has an objective to lslamise Nigeria. Every terrorists group has a spokes person and Nigerians know that Sheik Ahmed Gunmi a retired soldier is the spokes person of the group. Moreover, the group has the capability as it had exhibited in the war front when its member attacked military formations with the aim to over run and capture the facility. Even as write the group is reported to had invaded the University of Abuja staff quarters and abducted over five professors .
The group have brought down two Nigerian jet fighters and had severally abducted hundreds of students , killing and maiming them with the aim to scare them from attaining western education. Also, they operate and reside in the forest and forcefully demand for ransom to enable them reequiot and take care of their daily welfare. The group is coordinated under a leader who incidentally is known only by the group’s spoke person via communication and the government is still contemplating designating the Nigerian bandits as terrorists group. Unfortunate, with five vicious groups in a country, Boko Haram, Nigerian Bandits, lPOB, Amotekun and the Niger Dellta militants, then this government needs to explain to Nigerians how it slept off on duty and allowed all these groups to fester and soar on Nigeria consciousness.
