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By Louis Ibah
A wish cascaded through my thoughts: I had rather that this article derived its title from a standpoint in which the majority of Nigerians watching unfolding events in Jos, Kaduna, Benue, Katsina and Niger states in recent weeks would consider more empathetic, if not reassuring — that the President wept.
But, instead, it is the from the open display of emotions — that natural, uncontrollable outburst from persons somewhat revered as superhumans — as portrayed last week by two members of the Katsina State House of Assembly, Haruna Goma and Abubakar Mohammed: it is to them that this piece derives its headline.
Goma is the member representing Dandume Constituency, while Mohammed represents Funtua constituency of Katsina State.
Both wept. Yes! The lawmakers from President Muhammadu Buhari’s home-state of Katsina broke down sobbing like babies during a plenary where the state of insecurity in the state was debated. They wept for a country and a leadership that has repeatedly failed to defend and protect the weak and vulnerable in line with their oath of offices.
The legendary South African reggae artist, Lucky Dube, was correct when he sang that, though “big boys don’t cry”, he sometimes cried, “because of the pain he feels inside.”
And nothing perhaps could hurt more than the death of a loved one, not when gruesomely murdered for no justifiable reason other than being in the wrong country at the wrong time and with the wrong government in place.
That’s the best explanation for the thousands of deaths recorded in the hands of bandits and violent groups in the country, particularly in the last 11 years.
Undoubtedly, these deaths have left affected families traumatized and in permanent tears. Mothers hacked to death, leaving children orphaned and husbands widowers. Men burnt alive, most of them breadwinners, leaving helpless children and unprepared wives to bear the burden of widowhood.
And as many analysts have pointed out, terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and marauders have taken over the country, its highways and forests, pillaging communities and killing citizens unchallenged on daily basis.
Was this the pain that pierced the hearts of lawmakers Goma and Muhammed last Monday during plenary at the Katsina House of Assembly that they broke down in tears?
At the plenary while debating the worsening insecurity in the state, the lawmakers noted that about 32 out of the 34 LGAs in Katsina were threatened by bandits who kill, kidnap and rape unchallenged.
Goma, representing Dandume constituency, said recently no fewer than 11 persons were killed in two communities of Dandume, while many were abducted.
Mohammed recalled how for the past 40 days, bandits attacked their communities daily, killing scores and kidnapping many.
They appeared helpless. The burden they bear perhaps being that they can’t vent their anger on a son of the soil in a not so far away Abuja whom they overwhelmingly voted as President and Commander-in-Chief of Nigerian armed forces. The man they saw as the messiah who would bring to a speedy end some of the changes in the country, like insecurity, but is not living up to expectations. They weep realizing that the president’s state, which should be a fortress of sort, isn’t. For it awakens in them the reality that if bandits could strike at will in the President’s backyard, then where exactly is safe in Nigeria? Not even Buhari’s own traditional ruler was spared as he was once kidnapped.
No one can tell the amount of money spent by Katsina government and citizens on ransom to free kidnapped relatives.
It is a scenario that renders the constant clamour and associated disturbances from certain regions, ethnic groups or religion to produce the president of the country futile. In Katina, evidence is made available that in the most essential call to duty to his own people, Buhari failed them. It is a verdict that can only be found not in anywhere else other than in homes where lives have been lost to banditry in Katsina State.
The data of deaths is indeed frightening. No wonder northern Catholic bishops have likened that is happening to a civil war. According to Borno Governor, Babagana Zulum, over 100,000 people have been killed in the 12-year old insurgency in the North East of the country. He added that the whereabouts of about 10 per cent of Borno indigenes are not known as a result of the insurgency.
With this type of data, the government cannot be on top of the situation; certainly not in the homes of the thousands of bereaved families as Buhari’s spokespersons, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu are usually quick to say in statements responding to clear acts of terrorists attacks on defenceless citizens. The government cannot be winning the war in families where members are hacked to death while taking shelter in Internally Displaced Camps (IDP). The idea of being displaced and taking shelter under uncomfortable conditions in an internally displaced camp is enough trauma. But the feeling of being attacked in such a place is unfathomable to the mind.
So don’t tell them you are on top of the situation or that you are winning the war, for it flies on the face of reason. Is six years not enough time to have ended the blood bath and this reign of terror?
The Katsina lawmakers are abreast of this reality. Without doubt, their tears capture the mood of not only their communities, but of the country. We are all weepers; weeping for a country where life has become so cheap. A country where citizens live in regret with the best of professionals seeking ways to exit abroad in search of greener pastures. Who really isn’t weeping?
Earning a living sieving through news daily, I weep each time there is a newsbreak of attacks and attendant deaths in any part of the country. I shudder in shock, fear and disbelief that we have descended to the level of animals in a jungle. But, then, are predators in the jungle not more reasonable than what we are witnessing? We watch with somewhat admiration at the different adaptive features of animals to attacks and survivals in dedicated animal TV channels. Predators hunt mostly for food; certainly not for fun or game. That’s the order of nature in the jungle.
But who for, instance, delights in watching gory images of helpless human victims either in print or videos murdered by armed herdsmen who are not going to feast on the remains as predators in the jungle do? It means we are worse than the animals, or put differently, they are better than us. For the thousands of the dead are the sons and daughters of men. Across the various tribes and cultures in our culture, people rejoice at the birth of newborns. And you then think of the pains of nine months of pregnancy and labour of childbirth. Now imagine such life abruptly cut off by non-state actors just like that?
The Katsina lawmakers must have placed themselves in the shoes of the widows, widowers and the orphaned. The waters of our land have been turned red with the blood of the innocent.
Those who are not weeping only feign the obvious. Their case is like the undertaker who shows no emotions, dancing and gyrating, while bearing the casket of an unknown body, until he comes face to face with a body that belongs to him, then does he realize his feet can no longer sustain his dance steps. He becomes like the mourners he sees bearing the caskets of their loved ones.
But I have wept more in the month of August. It is a relief that it has come to an end. But could it signal the end of my weeping? Many rhetorical questions flood my mind.
What offence did those 22 defenceless citizens returning from a Muslim ceremony in Bauchi and heading to Ondo state commit that they were ambushes along the Rukuba Road and massacred in Jos? Or the 35 innocent christians butchered and burnt to death in Yelwan Zangam in the same Jos in reprisals by Muslim, what wrong did they do. Still in August, eight persons, including a mother with her four children, were killed by armed Fulani herdsmen in Yelawa town, Guma Local Government Area of Benue State, and then there is the death of one pupil of Salihu Yanko Islamiyya School in Tegina, Niger state, in their kidnappers’ den; he failed to make the return trip with no fewer than 92 colleagues who regained freedom after more than three months in captivity. What office did they all commit? And when you imagine that a military institution like the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) should be most secured, the bandits struck and killed two senior officers, while one was abducted and his whereabouts unknown till date.
The two military officer killed when bandits attacked the NDA and the one still missing, who did they offend?The young girl kidnaped from school where she went in search of knowledge, trusting it would guarantee her future is laid on the floor, flogged mercilessly, dehumanized and raped in Kaduna. What is her offence?
No one is taking the credit away from the military in the fight against insurgency and bandits; they say they are doing their best. Maybe because we grew up boasting that our military ranked as the best in Africa, we expected much from them. In our teens, we never imagined our military engaging bandits for more than one month and not crushing them.
But anyone who listened to the interview of retired senior intelligence officer with the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Commodore Kunle Olawunmi, would know that under the current government there is more to this than meets the eyes on why the insurgents have been “technically defeated” but the death tolls on citizens soars every week.
Olawunmi revealed that at the centre of gravity of the insurgents strength were a long list of sponsors in the current government of President Buhari. He listed governors, ministers, senators and Bureau De Change operators as notable sponsors, saying they were all known to the intelligence community and government.
As I write this piece, it has been more than a week, and the government that is so swift to respond to such allegations is so shocked and confused that it hasn’t issued a rebuttal or stated it’s own side of the story.
Could it be true that the current hierarchy of the Nigerian military is ambivalent, complicit or indecisive about taking on the bandits, perhaps because of their tribe?
Sadly, in the mix of all this is the blunt truth that the dead have breached no law except the crime of being born in the wrong country and at the wrong time. A country with a failed leadership.
The country sits on the precipice. Calls for self defence and self determination resonating from north to south. Villagers stockpiling arms for self defence in Niger, Zamfara, Kaduna and Katsina states. The well-to-do buying AK-47 with ease.
That is today’s Nigeria. That is why Governor Masari of Katsina is calling on indigenes to take steps to protect themselves. The state has failed, arm yourself, he said. How hopeless his message appears to persons from other states.
If a sitting president cannot ensure the safety of lives and property in his own state, what’s the inherent benefit in clamouring to have one from your state? For me, the messiah can come from anywhere.
But is Masari, too, by his call not also weeping with us? He weeps out of frustration. Designated as chief security officer without the power to order a police constable to take action against burglars amounts to being a toothless bulldog, that’s enough to make him weep — watching his people slaughtered like Christmas fowls and he can’t bark. He is a governor in a federation operating a flawed constitution on policing. Talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
And herein lies part of the problem that weeping cannot solve. Tears have never resolved a constitutional problem, but change does. The bane of the problem is the 1999 constitution. It’s high time we came up with a new constitution that devolves power to the states; especiallypower for internal policing and intelligence gathering. A constitution that must ensure that security is not done alone by the federal government, but that states and local councils are all involved. A constitution that allows communities and their traditional institutions to take their destinies in their own hands and defend themselves, not depend on a centralized policing system where orders come from far away Abuja.
The current National Assembly has begun the process of amending the flawed constitution. But on state policing and devolution of powers, it must show strong political will to dispel the cynicism of the majority of Nigerians that they are on a jamboree mission. They must allow that which we all know is good for all to prevail — more powers to states for internal security purposes. That is what democracy is all about. Power to the people.
The Buhari government, just as it did with separatists group in the South East, declare armed fulani herdsmen and bandits as terrorists, and seek external help to flush them out. Enough of the ambivalent posture. For only fools do the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Ibah is on the staff of The Sun.
