Pray, Is Insecurity Insurmountable?

A phone chat with Dr Lasisi Lagunju, editor of Saturday Tribune and ace columnist, on Friday morning sent me into melancholy. He had joked that he hoped I was not in “Okunland” as he did not have N135 million to pay if I was kidnapped by bandits. Kogi West has been experiencing bandit attacks for a while. An in-law, Pastor Ranti Ige, 67, was murdered in November 2023 on his way from Lagos to Isanlu, Kogi state, for the funeral of his friend. The bandits shot at the car, killing him instantly. They kidnapped the other occupants and demanded ransom. The information sent to us was that “Fulani herdsmen” had killed the man we adoringly called “Boda Ranti” as kids. He was such a lovely soul.

Just a decade ago, if anybody had told me a time would come when road travels would come with anxiety and hypertension, I would have filed it under “exaggeration”. I used to travel by road a lot in my years as a student and as a reporter on the field. There were only two things we feared in those days: armed robbery and accidents. Robbers did not usually kill: they would just ask the passengers to declare their assets and collect whatever they considered valuable. Road accidents were common, mostly because of insane speeding and other forms of reckless driving, but the good work of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) on the highways helped in no little way to reduce the incidence.

No, I am not talking about 1914. I drove with my younger brother and childhood friend all the way from Lagos to bury my grandfather in 2012. I had no fears. Although Boko Haram was in full swing, it was limited to the north-east and frequent bombings in Kano and the FCT. Even though we heard that the terrorists had cells in Okene, Kogi Central, which shares a boundary with Kogi West, we did not experience any attacks. Ten years ago, I went to bury my grandmother, this time driving from the Abuja axis and passing through lonely and bad stretches of roads between Okene and Kabba. There were no serious fears of being ambushed by bandits or terrorists. The story has changed completely.

I have watched Nigeria move from one level of insecurity to the other in the last 25 years: the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) uprising in the fight for “restructuring” and Yoruba secession; religious riots in the north, particularly in Kaduna, Kano and Plateau states, in the early 2000s in which tens of thousands died; unrest by Biafra campaigners in the south-east; Niger Delta militancy in the mid-2000s that led to the bombing of oil installations and mainstreamed kidnapping for ransom; Boko Haram terrorism in the north-east, accentuated by the Maiduguri uprising of July 2009; and cattle rustling in the north-west that probably gave birth to banditry, or maybe the other way round.

What we are dealing with today is beyond imagination. While Boko Haram has been largely contained to Borno state and the insurgents have been unable to seize the state capital since they launched their quest nearly 20 years ago, we now have various terrorist franchises: the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP), an affiliate of the Islamic State, and the Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan, a branch of Al Qaeda. Both of them broke away from Boko Haram. While ISWAP operates in the Lake Chad Basin and the Alagarno Forest in Borno state, Ansaru dominates the north-west and north-central zones and is apparently responsible for the Ogbomoso kidnappings.

As things stand now, I am not sure the security agencies know the extent of what they are dealing with. Or maybe they know but are simply overwhelmed. These groups mutate so rapidly that their evil machinations can be daunting. Whether they are bandits or insurgents, their mode of operation is similar. Whereas terrorists often make a political demand and insurgents seek to control territory, bandits are thought to be just after the loot: steal the cattle and collect the cash. But when bandits establish links with terrorists, they become deadlier. They kidnap for ransom to raise funds for their partners in crime. It is getting increasingly hard to distinguish between regular bandits and terrorists.

Not forgetting, of course, that there are low-grade kidnappers operating in the neighbourhood. Most recently, the younger sister of Chief Bayo Adelabu, former minister of power, and her two sons were kidnapped on the streets of Ibadan. The kidnappers were immediately classified as “Fulani jihadists” and “Fulani terrorists”. As it turned out, they were Yoruba criminals. However, there has been a deliberate campaign by some commentators and opinion leaders — noticeably since 2015 — to attribute every crime and every ethno-religious crisis to “Fulani jihadists” and “Fulani terrorists”. While we were busy debating this, the bandits and terrorists continued to grow bigger and stronger.

We politicised insecurity to score political points. When President Goodluck Jonathan was in office, he accused his opponents of fuelling insecurity and they, in turn, accused him of being “shoeless” and “clueless”. The All Progressives Congress (APC) promised to end Boko Haram just like that, saying the insurgency festered because Jonathan was “incompetent”. The truth is that everybody was playing politics with insecurity. That is why, as we approach 2027 elections, I shake my head anytime I see politicians grandstanding and claiming they have some secret formula to end insecurity in the land. Or when President Bola Tinubu’s followers blame the opposition for insecurity. Déjà vu.

Truly, some security experts believe Jonathan was close to crushing Boko Haram in his last days in office reportedly by using mercenaries. However, when the cash payment for their services was flown by private aircraft to South Africa, a prominent Nigerian politician with connections to President Jacob Zuma allegedly leaked the information and the money was seized. The deal ended. When President Muhammadu Buhari assumed power, he was persuaded that we did not need mercenaries, that the military could do the job. They did their best, but terrorism soon mutated beyond the Sambisa forest and insecurity spread on a new scale to other parts of the country.

Whatever progress we recorded in the early years of Buhari disappeared over time as we continued to politicise insecurity, framing everything with ethnic coloration. Even with all the facts before us today, some are still twisting the story and ignoring the reality that these bandits, terrorists and insurgents are a threat to all Nigerians, no matter their religious affiliations or the tribal marks on their faces. We are dealing with a bunch of lunatics, drug addicts and degenerates who shoot and loot for fun. They take pleasure in unleashing horror and terror on their victims while claiming to be doing some good for God. When you mix religion with psychosis, that is usually the end product.

“When do you think this madness will end?” Lasisi asked me. I had no answer, but I repeated what a friend told me: that the insecurity will, like a flu virus, run its full course before things normalise. But Lasisi reminded me that it is not just one virus we are dealing with. For 20 years, we’ve been saying “12 million children are out of school”. They have graduated from “no school”. Many are doing their post-graduate in terrorism. The factory producing the miscreants remains open, oiled by poverty and unemployment. By all means, we must launch a full-scale war on insecurity. We must overhaul our security architecture and strategy. But until this factory is ultimately closed down, we will not be free. 

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

DIEZANI THE PASTOR

After spending 11 years on “lockdown” in the UK, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, former minister of petroleum resources, has been found not guilty of bribery charges by an English court. In the court of public opinion, she was guilty as charged; in the eyes of the jury, there was no conclusive evidence. It was difficult for the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) to prove the five counts of accepting bribes and a charge of conspiracy to commit bribery before London’s Southwark Crown Court. Suspicion may be very heavy, but it — unfortunately — does not replace evidence. The former minister waxed lyrical and spiritual after the acquittal, quoting Numbers 23:19: “God is not a man that he should lie…” Life.

ETHIOPIA EXCHANGE

Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa was in a jubilant mood a few weeks ago when the governments of Nigeria and Ethiopia finally agreed to sign an MoU for the transfer of Nigerian prisoners in the Horn of Africa to their motherland. Since 2022, the chair of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) had been drawing attention to their plight. Senator Victor Umeh, as chair of the senate committee on the diaspora, twice raised the issue on the floor of the senate. It is good news that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has seen it through. Our prisons might not be better than Ethiopia’s, but home is home. Most importantly, Nigerians living abroad need to come to their senses and stop disgracing us. Enough.

FAKE NEWS FIESTA

Last week, I asked Ms Ebunoluwa Olafusi, Fact Check editor of TheCable: “How do you guys manage to fact-check misinformation at this dizzying pace? Me, I have given up.” She laughed, but I meant it. I am so tired. It is one piece of fake news every second. AI has sadly worsened matters. Someone got AI to create an image of bandits handing over General Rabe Abubakar’s body to Katsina state officials. Just one look and I realised the small coffin was being held at unnatural angles. It would have dropped, given that the deceased had a bulky frame. Yet some people believed it and started sharing and commenting. Fake news thrives best when it feeds into people’s mindsets. Pathetic.

NO COMMENT

Senator Adams Oshiomhole has been talking a lot recently but he seemed to have gone too far in a TV interview where he quoted some senators as saying they neither signed nor endorsed the report recommending Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan for suspension last year. “There are one or two or three senators who said they didn’t sign, but our names were there, how? Some said they may have attached an attendance register, which is inappropriate,” he said on camera. For whatever reason, he later issued a statement to say he had been misquoted. This may be the first time someone is denying his own words that are on video. At least, he didn’t blame it on AI this time. Hahahaha.