Insecurity: Boko Haram, herders and Nigerians

Aaron Sorkin, an American screenwriter and playwright once said, “We live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns.” In other words, for us to feel secure in our world, we must have the walls heavily protected. This protection is what is absent- as security- in Nigeria, today.

It started in 2009 when Boko Haram, a militant group, launched its attack in Bauchi. The group’s 11years insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria has led to the deaths of some many people and destroyed thousands of schools and displaced over a million people.

At the closing week of December 2015, while addressing BBC, the president commented that the militant group’s activities have been, to a large extent, curbed; thus, it has been technically defeated even when there were recent attacks as of then.

Lamentably, Boko Haram insurgents on Monday killed Rev Lawan Andimi, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Michika local government area, Adamawa state. The terrorists rejected the N50 million offered them and executed Andimi. While on his way to school on January 9th, a 200 level student of the University of Maiduguri, Dalep Dachiya, was abducted by the sect and was decapitated too. The video of his murder was released by the terrorists on January 22nd- gruesomely gory!

Similarly, on Christmas eve, the terrorists had killed 11 Christian captives in Borno state “to avenge the deaths” of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the late Islamic State leader, and Abul-Hasan Al-Muhajir, their spokesman, who were killed by the US. Dispiritingly, they often strike deadly blows anytime the Nigerian government claims they have been “technically” defeated or degraded. What an irony?

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Like the menace of Boko haram keeps gathering storms daily, the unrest unleashed on Nigerians by the Fulani herdsmen keeps skyrocketing too. Villages are being sacked, farms are being destroyed and females are getting raped by these heartless herders.

It is important to note that the lamentable rates of killings and kidnapping cases in Nigeria, today, are startling. Some few days ago, a popular trado-medical practitioner, Alhaji Fatai Yusuf otherwise known as Oko Oloyun, was killed by some gunmen on the Abeokuta-Igbo-Ora-Iseyin Road, Oyo State. In the same style, earlier in July 2019, suspected herdsmen in a kidnap attempt, shot and killed Funke Olakunrin, the second daughter of Afenifere leader, Reuben Fasoranti In Kajola, Ore along Ondo-Ore road, Ondo State.

Let me quickly regale you with a story from some events in my formative years. I can vividly recall how Aunty Aina’s – mummy bode- sonorous voice will always hit my eardrums like a blade to a velvet when I was in primary school. One of the things I can not forget easily was the functions of government that we were taught in one of our Social Studies’ classes.

On that day, she remarked, “ The Function of government is to protect the lives and properties of the citizens”. Jimoh Oladipupo and I were bosom friends, he’s so notorious- that he earned himself the sobriquet, “stubborn goat”. No doubts, as his best friend as of then, I was irredeemably playful too. We were already entrapped in the webs of our playfulness- we didn’t listen.

Aunty Aina asked us to remind her of one of the functions of government she had taught us. We couldn’t, and some strokes on canes landed on our heads. And she retold us the functions.

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Thenceforth, I found it difficult to forget that particular function of government that goes, “the protection of lives and properties of the citizens”. When I took government in SS1 too, it was one of the functions of government that Mr Falowo also hammered upon too.

However, at the moment, it seems that function is just a “bookish function” of government. That the CAN Chairman, Adamawa State chapter was beheaded by insurgents has invalidated that function. That Oko Oloyun and baba Fasoranti’s daughter, like many others, were kidnapped and killed is also a testament that the protection of lives and properties by the government is only a “bookish function” of the government.

Visibly, violence has engulfed the entire northern region such that no one and nowhere is safe: It is our own Gaza Strip. That the northern region of Nigeria is now the abode of massacre hub of violence and headquarters of poverty is incontestable.

Similarly, the South-west is the epicentre of kidnapping and assassination. These times are, truly and visibly, hard. Arsonists in Abule Egba- Vandalisation if pipelines. Assassination in Adamawa- Boko Haram- Fire and blood everywhere.

Importantly, the Federal Government needs to win the trust of the people on security by strengthening our security system. Also, this is where the initiative of the South-west governors need to be lauded for placing the security of their peoples on the front burner by establishing the region’s security outfit tagged, “Operation Amotekun”.

When Ban Ki-moon submitted that, “Terrorism is a significant threat to peace and security, prosperity and people.”, he must have had Nigeria in mind. All of these insurgent attacks alongside kidnappings have been a clog in the wheel of our progress. It has labelled the north as the poverty capital of the country the same as it has blessed other parts of the country with negative telling effects.

It will be leading and instructive to close in on the didactic words of Bahá’u’lláh, a Persian religious leader, and the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, which advocates universal peace and unity among all races, nations, and religions, where he remarked, “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.” It is only where security is well-established and functional that peace reigns. Wherever peace reigns, progress will be instituted.