The blood flows but the Nigerian state looks on, By Dan Agbese

A cursory glance at the Daily Trust newspapers and the social media: Terrorists abduct over 80 in Katsina (Daily Trust, May 15, 2024);

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A cursory glance at the Daily Trust newspapers and the social media: Terrorists abduct over 80 in Katsina (Daily Trust, May 15, 2024); Terrorists kill 5 soldiers, many villagers in Katsina (Daily Trust, May 14, 2024); 8 die, 20 injured as man Kano mosque over inheritance tussle (Daily Trust, May 16, 2024); Inside story of declining trade, rising poverty, banditry along Nigeria-Niger border (Daily Trust, May 18, 2024); Death in Plateau killings rise to 50 (Online media, May 21, 2024); More than 30 killed in Agatu (Online media, May 20, 2024). 

I could go on, but I am sure you do get the drift of my point. To underline that, I reproduce here my column, Blood on their baban riga, published in the Daily Trust on Sunday, January 28, 2024:

“Of the six geo-political zones in the country, the north has three, namely, North-Central, North-East, and North-West. The three zones comprise 19 of the 36 states in the federation. If these states were at peace, Nigeria would be at peace. If each of them was committed to articulated economic social, educational development, Nigeria would be a new nation.

“But the situation in all the 19 states is below pathetic. None of them is safe or at peace within its borders anymore. Their excellencies, the redoubtable state governors of these states, have surrendered their responsibilities to bands of criminals with various designations – bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers, Boko Haram insurgents, and religious irredentists in borrowed but hardly concealed robes. 

The state governors unwisely choose to pretend that all is well in their various states. The blood of the innocent people is on their baban riga. They choose to live a lie. Good for them; bad for the people for whose sake they realised their ambitions to become very important men as state governors. 

Pictures do not lie. Facts too do not lie. The facts are incontestable. However much the state governors may pretend to the contrary, they know, their people know, and the rest of the country knows, that no state in the three geo-political zones is peaceful and none is safe. Criminals, not the state governors, are in control. 

In their fine plumes of expensive baban riga, the northern governors strut the stage of social importance at naming ceremonies, weddings, and the funerals of parents who, but for the political elevation of their sons, would live and die as unknown social quantities. We cannot put this nicely. So, we put it brutally. Criminals have turned the 19 states into havens of insecurity. They decide where and when to kill, maim and turn the homes of the struggling masses to ashes. While the states burn, the state governors strut the stage of social inebriations.

 We are living in parlous times; we are living in perilous; we are living in dangerous times. Our rural areas are deserted; our farms are abandoned; the poor are impoverished; they cry, and they die from the selective violence visited on them by people with whom they have no quarrel. Still, our political leaders seem totally detached from the realities that confront them. I suppose they wear earmuffs, so the cries of the people cannot reach their ears; they wear expensive sunglasses so they will not see the bloated corpses of their people and the burning shacks and hovels. 

My guess is that they look at themselves in the mirror each morning and are satisfied that the changing size and colour of their cheeks are enough evidence of their political importance. They are not ashamed of their failures to defend and protect their people and provide for their welfare. They are not ashamed of exercising power without responsibilities.

The framers of the Nigerian constitution minced no words about the primary responsibility of governments at all levels to the citizens, to wit, the security, and the welfare of the people. They are heavy responsibilities. No leader has the luxury of failing to discharge them because failure to do so is irresponsible. 

A few years ago, General Yakubu Danjuma told his people they must prepare to defend themselves because the Nigerian state under President Muhammadu Buhari had failed to do its duty to the nation and its people. The security situation was as bad then as it is today. We feel the absence of the state. The situation in each go-political zone calls for the concerted efforts of the state governors in each zone. The governors need to wake up; they need to face the realities of the existential threats to their people.

I see no evidence that these governors take the insecurity in their states seriously enough to want to discuss and evolve strategies to contain the various bands of criminals. They do not appear to know that insecurity in one state is insecurity in all the states in the entire zone. I see the state governors at lavish naming ceremonies and weddings and funerals. I do not see them where it matters – at a round table where they put their heads together to find solutions to the insecurity.

 Only the governor of Katsina State has responded to the challenge by setting up a local security outfit. But they are no match for the bandits with more sophisticated weapons. Still, it shows that governor Radda accepts that the security of his people is primarily his business and not entirely the business of the Nigerian state. 

The killings in Plateau and Benue states cannot be the handiwork of bandits or other criminal elements. The killers are described as gunmen and Fulani herdsmen. Gunmen are anonymous, Fulani herdsmen are not. These are organised groups with a clear agenda. The killings are not random; they are planned and targeted killings. There is rhyme and there is reason to them. 

The attack on Christian churches in Plateau State may or may not point to a religious war but it gives a new and frightening dimension to the killings that have been going on in parts of the state for so long. They kill and have the temerity to film their grisly hand work to show to the world. They put the Nigerian state and its security agencies to shame. The state governor, Caleb Mutfwang, is in no position to stop the killers and save his people. He, like all the other state governors, is the chief security of his state. It is a meaningless title. The title imposes duty on the state governors, but the constitution provides them with no means of discharging the duty. 

Ascribing the killings in southern Kaduna State and the North-Central geo-political zone to unknown gunmen and Fulani herdsmen who are beyond arrest and containment, is a cop out by the Nigerian state.  It is a do-nothing stance. These people are not ghosts. They have faces. They are carrying out a defined agenda that should make the Nigerian state wake up. 

Miyetti Allah unveiled its newly formed vigilante in Nasarawa State in January this year. The purpose, ostensibly, is to fight criminals in the North-Central geo-political zone. Its president, Bello Bodejo, said they had recruited 1,144 mostly Fulani youths. Last week the government tried to distance itself from the group, but Bodejo put a lie to it. He said DSS and the police were fully aware of its set up. Indeed, the Nasarawa State commissioner of police was their guest at the launch of the outfit. 

The emergence of this outfit makes the security situation in the North-Central geo-political zone murkier. Miyetti Allah is a rabid ethno-religious group. If fighting bandits is their objective, then their primary areas of immediate concern should be where the bandits are most active: Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto and Niger states. That the Nigerian state will actively support the setting up of an ethno-religious vigilante is, to say the least, worrisome. The Nigerian state must wake up and do its duty of protecting the nation and its citizens who battle to survive hunger.