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At about the time Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo was marking his first 100 days in office, a tragedy of unimaginable dimension struck at the heart of the state. On Thursday, May 9, 2024, the menacing wind of students’ abduction by terrorists and bandits across northern Nigeria made a landfall in Kogi State when some students of the Confluence University of Science and Technology (CUSTECH) in Osara, near Okene Town, were abducted from their classrooms at about 9pm and herded into a nearby forest. The students, numbering about 30 and who were mostly in their first year, were said to have been preparing for their upcoming examinations when the bandits invaded the premises to abduct them. The attack on this higher institution of learning, which was built from scratch on a virgin land on the Lokoja/Okene section of the Abuja/Benin highway by the previous administration of Yahaya Bello, adds to the expanding area of Nigeria’s thriving terror franchise of abduction for ransom by bandits and terrorists.
For Governor Ododo, after successfully addressing the challenges of local government workers’ salary and pension payments within his first 100 days in office, which saw pensioners receiving 100 percent of their monthly entitlements for the first time in 16 years, the sad incident of the abduction of students from the state-owned university in Osara must have come to him as a security challenge that must similarly contained. And indeed it will seem that the gentleman governor, who has deployed a common-sense approach to governance of the state since his inauguration in January, has risen to the occasion in a manner that is worthy of emulation by other troubled states of northern Nigeria, in the overall interest of national security.
From its very detailed but concise and proactive communication on the unfortunate incident within 12 hours, including the number of abductees, time, location and circumstances of their abduction, to regular updates on situation reports, the Kogi State government demonstrated a high level of transparency that left no room for conspiracy fallacies arising from misinformation and disinformation. While taking full responsibility and speaking in very firm language about its resolve to rescue the students, the state government assured the public that it was “on top of the situation,” as nothing would be spared to bring the perpetrators to justice.
As it turned out, Governor Ododo and his security team were indeed on top of the situation, because as at the time the commissioner of information was addressing the media on the abduction, a rescue operation by a combined team of conventional security agencies and the Kogi State Vigilante Services was already underway. And in less than 48 hours the first set of students were rescued after a fierce gun battle that recorded casualties on both sides, making this the first real rescue operation in recent times, as against a negotiated release of hostages in exchange for payment of ransom by state governments. One week after the abduction a total number of 20 students have been rescued while security operation is still on going to rescue the remaining four students.
The success of the kinetic approach adopted by the administration of Governor Ododo in this case is actually a consolidation of the state’s security architecture and philosophy of the preceding administration of Bello, whose firm grasp of the security situation in Kogi was nationally acclaimed by critical stakeholders. Upon assumption of office in 2016 at a time when Kogi State had become a terrorist playground that was host to Islamist terror cells, killer herdsmen and local gangs of kidnappers that were embedded in communities across the state, Bello moved quickly to redraw the security architecture of the state to accommodate the civilian populace of affected communities under the banner of a state-funded vigilante service, as a community policing strategy. The vigilance groups were made up of all cultural economic groups resident in Kogi State, including hunters, farmers, cattle breeders and youth organizations. They formed a joint wall of common defence and served as first responders in attacks on their farmlands, schools, herds of cattle and highways. Members of the Kogi State vigilante service are a common sight at regular intervals on major highways traversing the state.
The Bello administration of also adopted a security philosophy on not egotiating with bandits and terrorists, while consistently opposing the option of amnesty as mostly canversed by his colleague northern governors. To enhance the capabilities and effectiveness of what has essentially become a community policing effort of the state government, Governor Ododo launched in April a security initiative code-named Metropolitan Quick Response, where a total of 120 vehicles and 44 motor bikes were donated by his administration to the combined security services working to secure lives and properties in the state. Therefore, when bandits struck at CUSTECH a month later, the state was on red alert to respond quickly. And with Governor Ododo’s zero option for negotiations with bandits and terrorists and payment of ransom for the release of abductees, he gave marching orders immediately for the rescue of the students.
Unlike what has become the norm in recent times, when some northern state governors appear to be succumbing to the whims and caprices of terrorists and bandits and throwing their arms up in the air in utter helplessness, Kogi State has dared to be different and its leadership has shown good example of strength and capacity that inspires hope that the state can and should be all-powerful over armed non-state actors. However, while it is highly commendable what the administration of Governor Ododo has done by asserting the pre-eminence of the state over armed non-state actors, he needs to engage with the federal government to further enhance the efficacy of the state’s security architecture in the face of the emerging threat such as experienced in Osara.
To enhance the lethal capabilities of the state-funded vigilante services to contain any recurrence or attempts at school abductions in Kogi State, Governor Ododo will do well to approach the federal government with the proposition of creating a volunteer unit in the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, which is the lead security agency in the Safe Schools Initiative, where the state vigilante service can be incorporated with funding from the Kogi State government. This will enable the men of the vigilante services get better training, armament and coordination, in line with the mandate of the Safe Schools Initiative. Governor Ododo may also present this proposition to his colleagues under the auspices of the Nigeria Governors Forum in their peer review session for adoption as a position of the body. That Nigeria may not fall to bandits and terrorists whose coffers have become full with massive ransom money with which they have acquired sophisticated lethal capabilities to take on the Nigerian state, fire-for-fire, it will require Nigeria’s political leadership to adopt Kogi State’s kinetic approach of rescuing abducted citizens using the full might of the state and the philosophy of non-negotiation with bandits to release abductees in exchange for ransom money in the overall interest of national security.
