Ending bandits’ killing spree in Zamfara

LAST week, in yet another orgy of violence,  bandits reportedly unleashed terror on Zamfara State, killing 31 persons in cold blood. According to reports, the bandits, who were recently granted amnesty by the state government, killed no fewer than 29 people in Babban Rafi village in Gummi Local Government Area of the state on Tuesday, January 14. On the same day, they killed two health workers at Makosa village in the Zurmi Local Government Area of the state. The bandits, brandishing AK-47 rifles, arrived at the village in the early hours of  the fateful day on motorbikes and started shooting sporadically.

Truth be told, the bandits are effectively in charge of affairs in the state. Scoffing at the law and the state instruments of coercion, they kill and rob innocent citizens, leaving a trail of blood behind them almost on a weekly basis. Because there are no repercussions for their lawless actions, the bandits, who at a stage declared that no amnesty arrangement could prevent them from robbing people, kill for the flimsiest reasons. For instance, the two health workers killed at Makosa village last week met their gruesome end only because they had refused to surrender their mobile telephones to the hoodlums. In January this year, the state Commissioner of Police, Usman Nagoggo, revealed that no fewer than 6,319 people were killed by bandits in the state in 2019 alone. This should worry all Nigerians. Following the killings, the state governor, Bello Matawalle, speaking at the 2020 Armed Forces Remembrance Day in Gusua, the state capital, warned unrepentant bandits to surrender their arms.

In our view, the bandits’ reign of terror has persisted in Zamfara State only because there is no governance system in place to tame their excesses. Governor Matawalle’s warning is therefore of little use. The Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government, intent on preserving the iniquitous status quo, has been consistently opposed to the clamour for the restructuring of the country, an integral part of which is the creation of state police. Nurturing the false belief that a country as geographically, ethnically and religiously diverse as Nigeria can be policed centrally, it has continued the pernicious practice of reducing the 36 state governors in the country to helpless chief executives falsely branded Chief Security Officers. Thus, whether or not it accepts the charge, it is implicated in the loss of precious lives in Zamfara. Were Zamfara policed the way states are policed in functional democracies and federations, the kind of lawlessness exhibited by the Zamfara bandits would have been curbed substantially if not eliminated outright.

As events since August last year have shown, the bandits’ release of no fewer than 427 hostages after supposedly embracing the peace initiative of the state government was a ruse. This clearly confirms our observation, in previous editorials, that the felons saw the amnesty as a compromise reached by two parties of equal weight and clout at the negotiating table with some latitude on both sides, and this could not possibly be the outcome expected by a government that had to bend over and backwards, allowing criminals to go scot-free in order to achieve peace. It is therefore no surprise that peace has remained elusive in the state.

The point cannot be stressed enough that a core essence of organised society is to ensure that no bandits exist. Therefore, unless and until the bandits are fully disarmed, they will keep unleashing terror on the state. In this effort, the Federal Government, the apostle of centralised federalism, must be actively involved. The government must act fast, combining the unleashing of the might of the Nigerian state on heedless bandits together with state provision for truly repentant bandits pending their full reintegration into the society and subsequent progression to becoming legitimate economic actors. More importantly, it is time the Buhari administration shelved its opposition to the country’s restructuring and accepted the inevitability of state police.