Beyond Kebbi Students’ Abduction

A recent abduction of 80 students from the Federal Government College, Birni Yauri, Kebbi State, affirms the need for a new thinking in the fight against insecurity, writes Shola Oyeyipo

“Keeping my post is too great a burden on the administration…on behalf of the government, I apologise for many problems from the prevention of the accident to the early handling of the disaster…”
These formed parts of the resignation speech of a former South Korean Prime Minister, Chung Hong-won, in the wake of a April 16, 2014 Sinking of the MV Sewol during, which more than 300 people died due to the government’s failure to protect the lives of the citizenry.

One is reminded of the above statement, when considering the wanton waste of lives and property in Nigeria by rampaging bandits, terrorists, herdsmen and other violent agitators, while President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency seems overwhelmed and it only routinely issues condolences to families of victims while vaguely asserting that the perpetrators would be brought to book.
The recent kidnap of over 80 students of the Federal Government College, Birni Yauri, Kebbi State in the Northeastern part of Nigeria, is about the third of school raiding by criminal elements, who now appears to be cashing in on official laxity to perpetrate kidnap and fleece families and parents of victims to the tune of hundreds of millions of naira as ransom money.

Although for a sleeting moment penultimate weekend, there was joy on the horizon, when news filtered in that the students and their teachers had been rescued by the federal military sent after the criminals. It later turned out to be a hoax as there was no such plans by the criminals to let go of their victims, perhaps, till after their demands, including ransom were met.

The attacks by bandits have thrown up many questions than answers. While the government must answer the question of why these killings have continued without the country’s security apparatus able to checkmate them, Nigerians, particularly the northerners, must also ponder on some salient issues of leadership in the country. While other section of the country are vehemently lamenting the spillover effects of the violence in the north, northerners, who are mostly affected are hardly condemning the incapability of the Buhari-led government to protect them. Or how would one explain the rousing welcome to which he was treated in Borno State recently?

In the build-up to the 2015 general election, then opposition All Progressives Party (APC), while canvassing votes for its presidential candidate, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari (rtd), did not only reprimand the Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government for failing to address insecurity, they alleged he was unconcerned, because it was a northern problem and promised to tackle the hydra-headed problems of insecurity, corruption, nose-diving economy and decayinginfrastructure, among others.

Nigerians from the north, south, east and west of the country jumped at the offer of a retired general and war veteran, who is expected to bring his military experience to bear upon the security challenges of the country as president, but sadly, the opposite has been the case, because Buhari, who came on board with promises to change the prevailing sad narrative, aroused high hopes in a frustrated citizenry while asking for time to “clear the mess” of his predecessors in office.

Despite the rhetoric of achievements that have hardly trickled down to the increasing poor masses, violent crimes have continued and corruption is not abating. Local and foreign debts are growing astronomically without commensurate developments in terms of infrastructure, coupled with heightened tension as a result of the increased rate of banditry, terrorism and the activities of criminal herdsmen, believed to have been emboldened by the president’s hesitant body language.
After six years of his emergence as civilian president, it has now become crystal clear that the president and his APC administration lack the capacity and political will to effectively address thenation’s problems. They failed to make good their lofty promises through which they wooed peoples’ sentiments in their campaigns.

There have been several coordinated killings, mayhems, thousands displaced and several hundreds of school children kidnapped by Boko Haram, bandits, and uncountable more killed by criminal herdsmen and other violent groups. The security agencies are obviously overwhelmed. While they seem to lack the intelligence needed to rout the brains behind the criminalities in Nigeria, they can easily silence Nigerians protesting the state of affairs in the country.
In saner climes, no President would have waited to fall this much before resigning to give way to other more competent hands to take over power. But the Buhari-led federal government would not bulge, it has insisted on sitting tight as though all has been well.

The government and their co-travelers must admit the fact that they have failed Nigerians woefully. They must also display their sense of responsibility by admitting their failure and putting an end to violent crimes across the country or taking the honourable path of relinquishing power for more vibrant hands to paddle the canoe away from this present turbulent zone to a peaceful and more prosperous terrain. The incessant killings by herdsmen, bandit attacks, abduction of school kids and other series of crimes are now trends that have assumed dangerously strange dimensions under Buhari, though African leaders are not known to throw in the towel after accepting responsibility for their failure as would be in better democracies, a lot more needed to be done about the state of insecurity under this administration.

Since the beginning of 2021, Nigeria has witnessed an unprecedented spate of violent kidnappings, especially, in the northwest, taking a distinct colouration from the terrorist bombings recognised with the northeast. Between December 11, 2020 and February 26, 2021, over 600 pupils of government schools, mostly teenagers and some teachers, have been kidnapped in the northwest. This is added to the fact that the country still awaits the return of the Chibok and Dapchi girls as well as many others abducted during the previous administration.
Why mostly schoolgirls? Why government schools? These are some of the questions that have remained either unasked or unanswered even as the country groans under the heavy invasion of banditry and terrorism.

While waiting for the return of several hundreds of students kidnapped to be reunited with their families, another set of 80 have just joined the list. Note that a lot of adults have also been abducted for ransoms as hostage-taking has become an industry for the criminal elements, who collect tens of millions of naira as they continue to exploit the government and families of their victims.

The spate of unbridled violent crimes spreading towards the southern parts of the country, in the form of Fulani herdsmen attack, initially on farmlands and farmers in the remote rural areas, is necessitating skimpy reprisals by the local farmers, who complain of official partiality in favour of Fulani criminal herders and snowballing into inter-tribal altercations, part of which is the basis of widespread self-actualisation outcries by the other ethnic groups.

The president, by his actions and or inactions, especially, in the handling of inter-tribal crises involving his Fulani kinsmen has caused more divisions in the land than his administration inherited,when he assumed office in May 2015. While one would expect that the president must urgently address this problem, it is equally high time the north stood up and got more involved against this dangerous development, capable of tearing the country apart.

Northerners seem to have taken possession of the bandits and their menace, seeing bandits as some of their own with their body language, which is at variance with sincere outcries by voices from the southern parts of the country. The silence of hitherto vocal members of the northern elite looks suspicious, painting a picture they are unfazed by the ugly trend.

Is the north truly untouched or satisfied by the insecurity situation whereby farmers and other artisans have been sacked from their places of residence, forced into internally displaced camps, some in Cameroon, Niger and Benin Republic, culminating in scarcity and exorbitant prices of goods and services?

Really niggling was the lousy welcome to which the president was treated in his latest visit to Maiduguri, the state capital of the epicenter of terrorism. While one would have expected the Borno populace to demand accountability from the president in the face of increasing terrorism and calledhim out, because he has failed on all his promises including the ones he made 13 months ago, when he was welcomed by angry youth in the northeastern state, people mostly youths were seen jubilating and dancing as they welcomed a man whose choices have made many orphans, homeless; some limbless, and others left with no future at all.

On February 12, 2020, President Buhari on a similar visit was taunted by angry youths apparently because of insecurity and rampant cases of killing of innocent youths by the Boko Haram terrorists.

Northerners are expected to be very concerned about the issue of the country, they should do away with their primordial and pedestrian sentiments that one of our own is in leadership, and thereby shying away from their civic responsibility of speaking against bad leadership. Now is the best time for patriotic collaborations between thinkers from the north and their southern counterparts, in calling out the present administration to wake up to its responsibility to the nation.
Pix: Some of the abduicted FGC students.jpg