Running for life

Gabriel Amalu

The attack on the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, last week, by suspected armed herdsmen has brought a new dimension to the insecurity plaguing the country. While thousands of ordinary Nigerians have been dispatched to their grave, by the ubiquitous armed herdsmen who have made life miserable for many Nigerians, especially farmers in the rural areas, the audacious attack on one of the few most guarded Nigerians gives cause for serious worry.

According to the governor, who has been in a running battle with the leaders of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, and their patrons like the governor of Bauchi State, Bala Muhammad, he ran one and a half kilometres on foot to escape death at the hands of the attackers. The governor, who parked his official car on the Makurdi-Gboko road, had walked that distance into the bush to tend his farm, only to be waylaid by the armed bandits.

Thankfully, the governor escaped unhurt, for an assassination of the governor could trigger a major cataclysm for Nigeria, already divided along ethnic lines. Like the assassination of the Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered the First World War, a killing of the Benue governor could lead to a second civil war in Nigeria, as warned by the governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike. While Wike is garrulous, with the way the security architecture of the country stands, conspiracy theorists would have had a field day.

With the commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces, and most heads of the nation’s military and paramilitary agencies manned by persons of a particular ethnic stock, how can the people of Benue State and Tivs in particular, not believe that such assassination was planned from the top? So, this column joins Governor Nyesom Wike, to advise the federal government to find the armed bandits involved in the attack, and punish them, to serve as a deterrent to their cohorts, who may have such evil plans.

While all lives are indeed precious, and the 1999 constitution enjoins governments to protect all, there is no doubt that the lives of political office holders have greater value, which is why state apparatus is deployed to protect such lives. Unfortunately, because the Buhari presidency has concentrated majority of the leadership of the nation’s military and para-military agencies in the hands of a section, there is the notion of a hegemonic plans.

So, with the crisis rocking several parts of Nigeria, particularly Benue State, predominantly a result of the farmers-herders clash, if any harm had come to Governor Ortom, the people of Benue will easily swallow every conspiracy theory that puts the blame on the patrons of the herders in government. As this column has argued severally, it is dangerous to skew the headship of the security agencies in favour an ethnic group.

The 1999 constitution forbade such insularity, and common sense abhors such tendency in a heterogeneous country like Nigeria. So thank God, Governor Ortom ran for his life, and was able to outrun the attackers. But again, those who attacked him, and those who are in the know, need to be apprehended and made to account. Also, the federal government must wake up and curtail the insecurity facing the country.

Like Governor Ortom, running for life, has become a way of life for many school children in the northern part of the country. According to some records, in the past few months, more than 600 pupils have been victims of kidnap by armed gangsters. What started as an isolated case when President Goodluck Jonathan was president has become a pastime under President Muhammadu Buhari. From Niger State, to Kastina and Kaduna states, kidnaping of school children have become a vogue, and the cost on those children, can only be imagined.

Tragically, those who are in charge of the states where the children were kidnapped have not shown an understanding of the traumatic impact on the children. After the children are returned, one gets the feeling that public officials are more interested in the photo sessions with the rescued children than a therapeutic rehabilitation for the children. The officials behave as if they are not apprehensive of the horrific experience on the children’s mental physiognomy, as far as the quest for education is concerned.

The shoot at sight order, allegedly issued by President Buhari, has not yet affected the insurgency and may not deliver Nigeria from the hands of the criminals working so hard to torpedo our country. Therefore a greater effort needs to be made by the federal government to stymie the descent into anarchy. This column wonders why the federal executive council has not proposed an amendment to the Police Act, and the 1999 constitution, to gift the country a decentralized police, when all zones in the country claim to be interested in that.

Why we prefer a knee-jerk instead of holistic approach to governance of our country is worrisome. An intelligent approach to some of the issues could reduce the tension in the country, yet those in charge prefer the panel-beating that has only brought misery to Nigeria. Just like his predecessors, the Buhari presidency is uninterested in restructuring, and like presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, may become wiser after he leaves office.

This column urges him to engineer the restructuring of our country, for greater efficiency, instead of waiting until he leaves office. While Obasanjo was president, he treated any mention of decentralisation of the security agencies or even the national economy as an abomination. President Buhari now has every chance to make a difference by taking steps to decentralise the nation’s economy and police architecture, to gift our country the opportunity to prosper.

Sometimes, I wonder what type of advisers the president has; whether they ever advise the president at all, or they are just there to waste our nation’s resources. Or is it possible that they are the ones misleading the president to make skewed appointments to the military and para-military agencies, such that majority of Nigerians have lost confidence in President Buhari’s sense of fairness as a national leader? Sometimes, when you see the preponderance of people from his ethnic stock getting nearly every position available, you wonder the future of our country.

Those who pretend that all is well with our nation or that what is happening is normal should worry now that a governor had to run a kilometre and half to stay alive. One wonders what would have become of our country, if Governor Orton is not physically fit, and had succumbed to fatigue, and was murdered by the armed herdsmen. If that happened, those claiming hegemonic agenda would have proffered that tragedy as a conclusive proof.