SAN FRANCISCO, December 02, (THEWILL) – Last week, unarguably, was one of the bloodiest in the country in recent times. Hell was let loose on Nigeria with criminality and killings. The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, had just raised the alarm about the security situation in the North and the week was rounded off with the gruesome massacre of innocent rice farmers in Zabarmari village in Jere Local Government Area of Borno State right on their farms.
It was as if the highly cerebral traditional ruler and religious leader was having a premonition of what was lurking in the corner when he raised the alarm. Some students of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria on a trip down South were waylaid and kidnapped on the notorious Abuja-Kaduna Expressway. Their parents had to cough out some undisclosed amounts of money as ransom before the students were released by their captors.
As if that was not enough, armed bandits and kidnappers stormed the staff quarters of the same ABU and abducted a lecturer, his wife and daughter in broad daylight. The hoodlums, however, met some resistance and had to release the lecturer’s wife and daughter but made away with the lecturer.
In the alarm earlier raised on the situation, the Sultan said: “Security in northern Nigeria has assumed a worrisome situation… A few weeks ago, over 76 persons were killed in a community in Sokoto in a day. I was there alongside the governor to commiserate with the affected community.
“People think North is safe, but that assumption is not true. In fact, it’s the worst place to be in this country. Because bandits go around in the villages, households, and markets with their AK-47. They stop at the market, buy things, pay and collect change, with their weapons openly displayed. These are facts I know because I am at the centre of it.”
Just a few days to the Borno killings and abduction of several women, many people were killed in Kaduna State while a first-class traditional ruler in Ondo State, the Olufon of Ifon, Oba Israel Adewusi, was killed in cold blood by suspected kidnappers who ambushed his car around Elegbeka along the Owo-Ifon Road.
It was the second high profile killing on that axis within just over a year after Mrs Funke Olakunrin, daughter of the late leader of the Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, was killed in a similar gruesome manner by armed bandits who turned out to be Fulani killer-herdsmen and kidnappers along the Ore-Ondo highway on July 12, 2019.
A totally devastated Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, described the killing of the first-class traditional ruler in the state as heinous, maintaining that the gory killings were an indication that the country was in a serious security crisis beyond the ordinary.
The killings were not only limited to Borno and Ondo States, Kaduna, Rivers and Ogun States, among others, also had their shares of the gory killings as hoodlums, bandits and insurgents took full control, killing and maiming innocent Nigerians, leaving in their trail tears, sorrow and blood.
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It is very unfortunate that the security situation in Nigeria has not only become horrific and scary but it is also frightening as well. From the North to the South and from the East to the West, nobody can confidently claim to be safe at the moment again.
For many Nigerians, death has, perhaps, become the cheapest thing as it comes very handy at almost every street corner, with armed criminals lurking everywhere, waiting to strike at the slightest opportunity.
THEWILL strongly condemns these killings and joins other well-meaning individuals and organisations, including the United Nations and the European Union, in calling for a stop to this “madness.”
For us, the ongoing killings of innocent Nigerians across the country by bandits and the current state of insecurity are quite unacceptable.
This descent to the present horrific level is not only a shame to the security forces and the leadership as a whole but calls to question the rationale for retaining the security chiefs despite several calls for their sack.
Though the Federal Government has reacted promptly to the Borno killings with a marching order from President Muhammadu Buhari to the Nigerian Army to move in and rout the insurgents, we don’t believe that we have to wait till the harm has been done before doing the needful.
The excuse being given that the farmers did not get official clearance from the Army before going to their farms does not hold any water and hundreds of high-powered delegations on condolence visits to the state would not bring back the dead. The bitter truth is simply that a government that cannot protect its citizens is a failed government and no amount of excuses and blame game would help a failed leadership.
THEWILL finds it disheartening that the recent killings are coming just a few days after the 2020 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) indicated that Nigeria, for the second year, remains the third most terrorised country in the world.
According to the report, the number of deaths from Boko Haram in Nigeria increased by 25 percent from 2018 to 2019, stressing that as a result of this, Nigeria is second to record a fall in violent deaths after Afghanistan in 2019.
“Nigeria had the second largest fall in total deaths, owing largely to a 72 percent reduction in fatalities attributed to Fulani extremists.
“Despite this decrease, the number of deaths attributed to Boko Haram increased by 25 percent from 2018 to 2019,” the GTI report said.
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