By Olatunji Ololade

Modern entertainment is a rebuke to moral nature, an escape from the province of responsibility with its restraining womb walls and bowels.

Like most entertainment channels, the digital satellite television feeds anti-moral miasma, creating a world of fluid caprices, amid its carnage of incarnations.

The big pervert reality show, for instance, refutes the reality of northeast terrorism, armed banditry in the northwest, the farmer-herder crisis in the southwest, and secessionist terrors in the southeast.

In The Emperor’s Tomb, Joseph Roth chronicles such netherworld in his depiction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, writing that at the very end of the empire, even the street-lights longed for dawn so that they could be extinguished.

The undercurrent of modern Nigeria, where people are reduced to objects, where values erode and nationhood dreams collapse, incites a similar yearning for annihilation and what Hedges calls a moral decline into hedonism and giddy, communal madness.

Understandably Nigerians seek escape from their daily miseries. They crave distraction from the narratives of pain and desolation triggered by terrorism, armed banditry, farmer-herder crisis, and secessionist mayhem. In response, many seek comfort in spectacle and pseudo-events, like the big pervert reality show. I will not state the actual name of the muck-fest lest it resounds as yet another free advertorial for its sickness.

The show constructs symbolic psychology that’s very much pedestrian yet perplexing to its host society. One of its basic patterns is to incite warring contraries among the citizenry thus stratifying them into an extreme left, a complacent middle, and immoderate right.

An overarching theme of the show, however, is its incitement of bitter confrontations and perverse bonding between male and female participants, ethicists, and corruptible divides among citizenry segments.

In the show, immoderate lust and sex are weaponised as themes of competitive power relations, towards which Nigeria takes a moralist stance while spotting an erection for its torrid dross.

The country’s broadcast regulator, forever sterile in thought, and dubious in candour, issues cowardly ripostes to critics of the show’s insolent attacks on Nigeria’s cultural structures. To those who scoff, “What cultural structures?”, I say, “Don’t be silly.”

It was hitherto unthinkable that the National Assembly and a government presided over by supposed moral exemplars would leave Nigeria beholden to merchants of filth. But then they are only Nigeria’s elected leaders, and they are powerless in the face of rights arguments and the show’s decadent hordes.

To those claiming that it’s all in the interest of fostering a conducive business environment, China has outlawed the show alongside every TV programming that ridicules Chinese traditions and “defiles the classics” including those that promote “overnight fame, wealth parade or hedonism, selfishness, and intrigue.”

Despite its media censorship, China appreciates in repute as a global super power and economic giant. Yet morality and rights hypocrites would flay China for its media censorship and conveniently ignore Nigeria’s newfound love for Chinese loans, media, and economic imperialism.

The incumbent government is curiously beholden to the show’s producers thus its cowardly preachment that the muck-fest is restricted to a satellite TV channel, and that there is no compulsion to view it. This is evidently airheaded.

The show desensitizes its teeming viewers to wanton amorality, sexual harassment as perpetrated by the show’s inmates, physical and psychological rape.

Yet government and regulatory authorities turn a blind eye to its vampiric plotting even as teenagers, young adults, and the elderly are psychologically exploited and manipulated on one front by the show’s producers for profit; on another front, the show serves as a powerful distraction, diverting the citizenry’s attention from more crucial public concerns of comatose industry, treasury looting, non-existent infrastructure, terrorism, substandard schools, and health facilities.

Large fractions of the country’s productive labour force and the youthful electorate momentarily lost interest in the country’s affairs to bicker and canvass support for their favourite participant in the depravity.

Many said they would rather obsess about the show than engage in more constructive quests at self-actualisation and nation-building.

Not a few youths “tapped from the grace” of the eventual winner of the show, enthusing that if he could get selected after multiple failed attempts, and emerge, overall winner, there is yet hope for every youth seeking participation in the show.

They are evidently smitten with a show that glorifies as its core message, an innate claim that we’d all like to be porn stars at one point in our life or another.

In Nigeria, porn has won the culture war by fusing with the commercial mainstream. Nudity, promiscuity, and random sex are mainstream chic, no thanks to the big pervert reality show.

Modern Nigerian fashion takes its cues from porn. Music videos mime porn scenes, presenting women as porn-rats, or video vixens if you like. Everybody exploits porn for shock value including the producers of the big pervert reality show.

The show targets the youths and severs their mental connection with moral roots. The so-called leaders of tomorrow are thus lured backward, away from menarche into the womb of regression.

Operatively, the inmates are enclosed in a zone of morbid ecstasy. They are untouchable carriers of charisma kept under quarantine, till they emerge as bearers of dirt.

All of the show’s participants, irrespective of gender, are non-persons, subject to mass cheering and shunning. The eventual winner, like other participants in the show, emerges blinded by celebrity and severely crippled to function as a normal constituent of a humane society.

As participants in the show, their imagination is loosened, but their bodies are bound by ritual restriction. They are daemonic tools, sacrificial totems maddened by intoxicants: alcohol and human milk, fluid of slovenly genitals. And some are richer for it.

The heated debate over their sexual indulgences is familiarly rife with sentiments as societal segments engage in a clash of obscenities in defense or condemnation of goings-on, on the show.

Viewers’ morality is seduced and conquered as the producers render sensuality aglow in gothic gloom. The big pervert reality show thus legitimises carnal depravity and brokers pornography via its bedchamber of rank and malodorous sex.

Any critic of the show is, however, deemed ‘hypocrite,’ a disgruntled visionary who feels too deeply and sees too much, and is tortured by his own vision.

According to the organisers of the show, the 2021 edition recorded a total of over one billion votes across all platforms, the highest since the inception of the show. They also announced that more than 300 million votes were cast in the grand finale week.

Shall we seek import, still, in a social media post by a certain Shakeerah S. It goes thus: In 2018, the total number of votes on the show was 170 million. In sharp contrast, the total number of votes cast at the 2019 general election was 27 million.

Then she writes: “A practical reality of who we are as a people and where our priority lies as citizens. The funny side in all of these; we still go to bed, have a good sleep, and wake up with the hope to meet a Nigeria we didn’t create.”

This brings us to the Nigeria of our dreams vs the Nigeria of our reality. Do we deserve Nigeria as it is? Yes, we do.

Nonetheless, the country’s youth clamour for change. They want a revolution and a radical improvement on the status quo. But how can they exact change while they are perceptually enslaved?

• Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Niger groan as more
  teenagers embrace the gun
• Inside the minds of child bandits in the northwest
• Kidandan…Where bandits rule overlords

Aliyu, 17, wanted to be a legend. So, he burned his father’s cat to a charred skull to create his legend out of rage. His father, Jatau, railed at him for killing the cat (mage) and Aliyu charged back at him, daring him to retaliate. After burning the cat, he pounded its charred remains into dust and made an amulet from it. “Whenever it is around my neck, no bullet can kill me,” he said, fingering the talisman made of animal hide and bone fragments.

Aliyu knew his father treasured the cat. But it had to die. “I killed it to teach him (his father) a lesson,” he said.

The 17-year-old had seen his father crouch in fear, cuddling the cat, while his mother and sisters got raped. In that moment, he renounced his respect for the father. Aliyu swore he would never be like him and jettisoned his dream of following in his steps as a rice farmer. The man who he embraced as his childhood hero was nothing but a frantic coward, he thought.

“That man was a coward. He watched them (bandits) rape his wife and daughters – my mother and two sisters. Afterwards, they (bandits) came back to abduct them. They said they were ‘too sweet’ to be left behind. My father did nothing. He was a coward,” Aliyu said,  fiddling the safety of his rifle.

In a predawn attack on his village, Birane, in Zurmi LGA, armed bandits stormed his home and raped his mother and two sisters. Afterwards, they shot his grandpa and cousin in the head, and his father on the left foot. Then they abducted his mother and two sisters.

Furious and spoiling for revenge, Aliyu joined the Yansakai, a local vigilance group fighting armed banditry in Zamfara’s rural communities. But he believed that “they were too slow.” The leader of the branch that he patrolled with, also refused to commit the group to Aliyu’s quest to rescue his mother and two sisters.

“He said they did not know where the bandits took them. But he was simply afraid. They (Yansakai) are always too afraid to face the bandits,” said Aliyu.

Subsequently, he quit the vigilance group and warmed his way into the fold of a local gang loyal to Dan Karami, a bandit kingpin.

But since he joined the group, Aliyu hasn’t found his mother and two sisters. “There is no word about them from anywhere. I have searched everywhere,” he said, adding nonchalantly, recently, he heard that his father was killed by another bandit group laying siege across communities in Zurmi LGA.

Aliyu hopes to quit armed banditry after he rescues his mother and sisters. “Once, I do that, I will drop the gun,” he said.

Scores of boys, like Aliyu, abound in Zamfara. Many of them would gladly choose the bloody life of a bandit than the punctured peace of the strife-ravaged communities.

“Most of them are children pretending to be hard men. They all want to carry guns and raid villages. They want to rape people’s wives and daughters. It’s all they ever talk about,” said Hussein, 43, a displaced resident of Zurmi.

Armed banditry plaguing Zamfara and neighbouring northwestern states, Katsina and Sokoto has consumed more than 8,000 lives – mainly in Zamfara – with over 60,000 fleeing into Niger Republic in the last decade, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

Indeed, a new gale of bleakness pervades the nooks and crannies of Zamfara. A thick pall of fear hangs like a dark cloud over several communities in the state, “particularly the villages on the outskirts,” said Adamu Garba, a displaced farmer in Tsafe.

A dangerous trend ensued with the influx of teenagers into bandit gangs across the state. “Every where you go, you will see them. Many of them start by loafing around looking to cause trouble. They don’t care about anyone. They don’t respect their elders. They all want to become bandits. They love the life,” said Nusaiba Baushe, who fled her village after bandits killed her husband and two sons.

 

 

The storm this time

If there is another storm that the northwest should be worried about, it’s in the influx of teenage boys into armed banditry. “There are too many boys pretending to be hard men. Many of them eventually enter the bush and join forest bandits. It’s a sad development,” said an inspector with the police command in Gusau.

Just recently, the Police Command in Zamfara arrested two students, 15-year-old Donatus Ejeh and Tukur Bashir, in connection with their threats to abduct a staff, principal and students of their respective schools, the Dominican College and the Federal Government College (FGC), Anka.

The State Commissioner of Police (CP), Hussaini Rabi’u, said that they were arrested following reports of their threats from authorities of the affected schools.

He disclosed that on June 25, 2021, a letter was found close to the suggestion box of the Dominican College, located in Sha’iskawa area, Gusau. The letter contained a threat to kidnap the Principal of the school, Rev. Sister Chinyere, and some students of the school. After receiving a report on the incident from the school management, police detectives swung into action and arrested 15-year-old Ejeh, as the principal suspect. During interrogation, it was discovered that he was an SS3 student of the school, said the police commissioner.

In a separate incident, the Principal of FGC, Anka, reported to the police that an unknown person called her and demanded a N3million ransom to prevent the abduction of some students of the school.

Rabi’u said that during investigations, the police arrested Bashir. “We discovered him to be an SSS1 student of the college. Investigation is ongoing to arrest other members of his gang for prosecution,” said the police commissioner.

In another incident, a young boy narrated, in a viral video, how he was taught to shoot and kill by one Alhaji in Gidan Kaso village in the Birnin Magaji area of Zamfara State.

The teenager claimed he had used his rifle uncountable times, adding that members of his gang, had kidnapped so many women. Some of those abducted were raped and killed, he said.

This comes a few months after the Zamfara Governor, Bello Matawalle, lamented that teen bandits were terrorising the state.

Aliyu Daji, a sociologist and humanitarian volunteer, argued that the situation in Zamfara is particularly worrisome due to the absence of stable family structures.

“Insecurity takes its toll on everything, especially the family. The family unit has been completely destroyed. As it falls apart, everything else falls apart: school, religion, local government, community. Family is the thread holding them all together. When it is severed, life, everything ends as we know it. There is no community without family,” he said.

According to him, children have no one to look up to anymore. Everyday, they see their parents in flight, running for their lives. Fathers, who used to be seen as powerful authority figures are established as cowards in such situations; many of them are beaten and killed by younger men and even teenage boys, all these in the presence of their wives and children.

Consequently, children don’t see their parents as authority figures anymore, the fathers in particular, leading to tension within several families.

Several boys at the cusp of adolescence and young adulthood suddenly discover that their parents are actually very weak and defenseless before the brute force of armed bandits. Thus they see no reason to fear them anymore. They don’t listen to anyone. There is no father figure. No model of authority. Nothing.

In a sad twist, they have taken criminals and bandit leaders as their role models and heroes. They see a lot to admire and covet in the latter’s bristling notoriety. Eventually, many of them aspire to similar infamy.

“That is why we see a lot of boys joining criminal gangs. The northwest is a mess right now,” said Daji.

Several boys interviewed from Kadamutsa, Tsafe, Maru, Jangebe, Bakura, Talata Mafara, Gidan Zago Dansadau, rued the attacks that cost them their peace, education and homes, and extolled the notoriety and perceived courage of their favourite bandit leaders in same breath.

“I don’t need to go to school. What will I be if I go to school? A teacher? Doctor? Engineer? Fighters make all the big money. They have all the power. Politician fear them. Government fears them. See, my father was a politician. He promised to make me a councillor. He is dead now. Bandits killed him and my stepbrothers. Then they took my stepmother away to be their forest wife. Bandits have all the power today. I will become a bandit leader, make big money and retire very young,” said Nasir Kwatarkwashi. The 16-year-old nursed dreams of relocating to Nassarawa to work as a butcher, until the bandits struck.

Likewise, Aminu Badarawa, 18, “would like to be a bandit. I will be rich. I will make money and live in Dubai. I will keep one family there and one family in Nigeria. When I am away, my boys will work for me and collect,” he said.

Banditry kingpins have attained repute in the estimation of a growing number of boys in the northwest region. Teenagers speak glowingly about bandits’ leaders including Dogo Gide, Kachalla Turji, Adamu Yankuzo, Dan Karami, Dan Hasarshi, and Ali Kachalla to mention a few.

Ali Kachalla, is particularly a teen favourite; it was his group that shot down a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) alpha jet on June 18, 2021 and subsequently burned a Mowag Piranha armoured personnel carrier in Dansadau on July 23 2021. Rather than be repulsed by his armed violence, the teenagers whose lives had been ripped apart by the carnage he perpetrates, aspire to be armed bandits and forest warlords on the  watch of the bandit kingpin.

Kachalla’s group, numbering more than 200, operates from the Kuyambana forest and an improvised base – made up of a couple of huts – along the Goron Dutse river, about 25 km south of Dansadau.

His gang directly controls the villages of Dandalla, Madada, and Gobirawa Kwacha, from where he launches attacks on Dansadau and other neighbouring communities. Kachalla’s gang reportedly has an alliance with Dogo Gide’s nomadic gang.

Dogo Gide, on his part, leads a group of bandits stationed near Dansadau. He attained notoriety for killing fellow bandit leader, Buharin Daji and 24 of his goons, after tricking them to a peace meeting to settle a rift between their gangs.

Then there is Dan Karami, who leads bandits and runs a robust kidnap-for-ransom operation with the support of his father. Dan Karami’s group operates from different forest camps straddling Zurmi and Birnin Magaji LGAs in Zamfara and Jibia LGA in neighbouring Katsina State.

Just recently the young bandit leader, presumably in his 30s, made the news as he bragged about his reasons for initially shunning peace overtures from the deposed Emir of Gurmi, Atiku Abubakar, saying that the Emir sent troops to attack him and his gang.

He said, “I was in front of my house when the troops were taken to the forest (his camp). Four days later, when some of the troops were returning from Gusau, I laid ambush on them and killed scores of them, and destroyed their operational vehicles. Days later, the troops attacked me very early in the morning but my boys overpowered them and we killed an unspecified number among them.”

According to him, on another occasion, troops of the Nigerian armed forces and their Nigerien counterparts, launched an attack on his gang. “Yet we killed scores of them. After all these, it became clear to the Emir of Zurmi that the troops cannot win the war against us. He called me for another peace deal, and from then I ceased fire,” Dan Karami said.

 

Economics of armed banditry, kidnap for ransom

One reason why kidnap for ransom thrives is the economics surrounding it. The sheer number of small incidents, at the heel of major coups scored by kidnap kingpins has established that the kidnap economy has become very lucrative.

For instance, about 2,371 persons were kidnapped and the sum of N10 billion demanded in ransom, in Nigeria, in the first half of 2021, according to a report by SBM Intelligence, an economic research firm in its 2021 half-year kidnap report.

Nearly 1,000 school kids have been kidnapped in Nigeria’s northwest since December 2020. SBM Intelligence research and analysis of data covering the period from June 2011 to the end of March 2020 – using a collection of public sources, police and media reports – also shows that between June 2011 and the end of March 2020, at least $18.34 million had been paid to kidnappers as ransom. Even more frightening is that the larger proportion of that figure ( just below $11 million), was paid out between January 2016 and March 2020, indicating that kidnapping has becoming very lucrative in the country.

 

The Kaduna conundrum

Like Zamfara, Kaduna presents a sorry case of a state in the severe grip of armed bandits. While presenting a security report for the second quarter of 2021 to the state governor, Nasir El Rufai, recently, Samuel Aruwan, the State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, said 774 people were kidnapped and 222 killed between April and June 2021, in the State. He said that Kaduna Central and Kaduna South senatorial zones recorded 159 and 54 deaths respectively, while Kaduna North had nine.

In his first quarter report, Aruwan stated that 323 people were killed and 949 others kidnapped by gunmen within three months in the state. The true nature of armed banditry in Kaduna is further highlighted by the recent bandit attack on the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA).

The bandits invaded the military academy in Kaduna, around 1am on July 24, killing two officers and abducting another senior officer, Major Christopher Datong. Aside from the officers killed and kidnapped, some others sustained gunshot injuries and are currently receiving treatment at the NDA hospital.

The attack on the military facility comes amidst heightened insecurity in the northwest, with Kaduna State at the epicenter.

 

A perilous trip to a bandits’ den in Kidandan

Of the bandit dens in Kaduna, Kidandan festers like a thick welt on the breast of the State. The village features on the radar of prime time TV, due to the persistent and often bloody attacks carried out in the area by armed bandits.

A trip to Kidandan manifests as a pilgrimage of sort. The fixer led the way across a rough tract and stopped at a mountain. From nowhere, a squad of armed bandits, about 40 of them, emerged travelling on bikes while their AK-47 rifles dangled menacingly strapped to their backs.

The fuel tanks of their motorcycles were covered with thick pads of animal skin and woollen material, apparently to protect it from exploding when hit by bullets during gun battles with the Nigerian military.

The motorcycle tyres were also wrapped in animal skin to enable them move easily along the mountainous region. Findings revealed that the leather protects the tyres from the sands and harsh terrain. It also makes it difficult to track them.

The armed bandits did not cover their faces. One of the gang held tons of cash in a vice grip, smoking Indian Hemp like the rest of his colleagues. Several members of the gang gulped psychotropic substances including formalin and codeine.

They inquired in bold, harsh tenor, what a journalist seeks in their domain. Despite the spirited explanation by the fixer and his emphatic mention of a mutual acquaintance’s name, they refused to be interviewed citing fears of being identified and killed by security agents.

However, they approved snapshots of their weapons, which included lots of AK-47 rifles, new motorcycles and a RPG rocket launcher. They boasted that they had lots of money and enough sophisticated weapons to strike fear in the hearts of Nigeria’s armed forces.

“The only reason you would be allowed to go unharmed is because you mentioned our very good friend’s name,” said the leader of the squad.

Less than 1,000 metres from the bandits’ camp in Kidandan, there is a checkpoint manned by about 11 soldiers and policemen. As the fixer led the way back from the bandits’ domain, the policemen asked how the team managed to return unscathed. They admitted that they never expected anyone to return alive.

In that moment, it became clear that the law enforcers were aware of the bandits’ presence in the area but they were apparently past caring about its import for a community that had suffered persistent carnage and bloody onslaught from armed bandits.

While the Kaduna bandits may be making a killing from ransom money, armed bandits in Zamfara seem more organised than their peers in Kaduna. In Kaduna, there are frequent intra-bandit squabbles and cases of insubordination among the criminal rank and file whereas in Zamfara, perpetrators have been known to abide by gang rules and code of conduct.

The more organised nature of the criminal gangs in Zamfara has been adduced to the long history of banditry in the state – practice makes perfect.

 

In the beginning…

Armed banditry erupted in Zamfara around 2009 but it escalated in 2011 after the general elections. During that period, there were frequent theft of domestic animals by local bandits across many local government areas of the state. The bandits used to carry Dane guns, cutlasses and sticks for their operations and most of their activities were targeted at cattle owners found in isolated villages and forest regions.

The affected rural communities subsequently organised a local vigilance group known as “Yansakai” to checkmate the activities of the bandits. Subsequent clashes between the vigilance group and suspected bandits led to deaths in some villages including Kizara, Lilo, Kwokaya, Gidan kaso, Lingyado, Bagega, Unguwar Galadima, Tungar Baushe, Guru, Badarawa, Rakumi Mallamawa, Kagarawa, Cigama, Malmo, ‘Yargada, Jangeme, Madaba, Mutunji, Mashema, Dangulbi, Birnin-Magaji, Filinga, Kabaro, Tungar Rakumi, and Wonaka, where a total of about 729 persons including two police officers were killed, according to Mustapha Nadama, a research specialist on banditry.

Overall, Zamfara became less safe by each passing year as armed banditry and kidnap for ransom escalated across its major townships and rural areas.

 

Bandits’ modus operandi

Further investigations revealed that rural communities constitute the major targets of bandit attacks. They prowl different routes across Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Niger, Sokoto, and Kebbi States and their major hideout is the Sububu forest in Maradun LGA, in Zamfara. From Sububu forest, disclosed Nadama, they spread terror through the state passing through Rudunu, Indulmu and Tangila villages to Dandabi forest in Shinkafi LGA.

From Dandabi forest, they move to Dumburum forest into Zurmi, one of the hotbeds of banditry in the state and proceed eastwards towards Batsari forest in Katsina State or move southwards towards Shamushalle thick forest in Birnin-Magaji LGA in Zamfara.

From there, they enter Mai Jan-ido forest, through Tsabre forest to Gusami forest. From Gusami forest, they continue their journey either eastwards towards Batsari forest in Katsina State or westwards to Ajja forest, which is another thick forest situated in Mada Area Development Council (ADC) of Gusau LGA. From Ajja forest, the bandits move southwards to Wonaka forest and to Fegin-mahe forest. From this point, they move eastwards heading to Akuzo forest. From Akuzo, they move to Danmusa forest in Katsina State. They move further towards Gurbin-Maikiya and Maidabino forests to Zangon-Pauwa forest in Kankara LGA of Katsina.

Subsequently, they move to ‘Yanwaren Daji forest in Tsafe LGA in Zamfara, through the Akuzo forest in Mada ADC in Gusau or via Zango-Pauwa forest in Kankara, Katsina State.

They move westwards to ‘Yankuzo and Hayin Alhaji forest in Tsafe. Then southwards to ‘Yartalata forest in Kankara up to ‘Yarmalamai/Dan’aji forest, where they burst out at ‘Yankara/Sheme forest in Faskari. From there, they enter Fankama forest, also in Faskari and subsequently traverse Bilbis/Magazu forest in Tsafe.

They also follow cattle routes from Magazu forest to KunchinKalgo/Danjibga forest, where they move towards Marbe forest, all in Tsafe. From Marbe forest, they follow cattle route to Rijiya-Tsakardawa, Tofa/Jangeme forest and Wanke forest all in Gusau.

From Wanke forest, the armed bandits follow a feeder road to Kekun-waje forest, Bingi forest, Bare-bari village and Gobirawa forest, all in Bungudu LGA. From Gobirawa forest, they enter Maru through Bindin forest, where they follow cattle route to Dangulbi forest and pass through Daraga forest, Mutunji forest, Kabaro forest, Sangeku forest, and then Kajiji forest in Doka village, under Dansadau in Maru LGA.

At Kajiji/Doka forest, the bandits either move eastwards leading to Sabuwa forest in Katsina State or head towards south to Ayu forest in Bena District of Kebbi State or move towards south-west to Kotonkoro forest in Niger State. At the end, the bandits converge at Janbiri forest which serves as their permanent base. Janbiri forest is a thick forest located in Birnin Gwari L.G.A. of Kaduna State which shares boundary with Dansadau Area of Maru L.G.A. of Zamfara State and Sabuwa L.G.A. of Katsina State.

There is no gainsaying Nigeria’s large swathes of ungoverned spaces compounds its banditry problem; there are several land tracts in the country without government or security presence, which puts residents at the mercy of armed bandits and other criminal elements. Kidnap syndicates operating out of the northwest rely on big forests as their operational base.

In response, governors from the northwest alongside their Niger State counterpart have jointly endorsed the deployment of trained vigilantes in their respective states, to shore up the presence of security personnel in the rural communities.

According to Katsina Governor, Aminu Masari, “Deploying vigilantes to the grassroots can help tackle banditry if governments within the region work towards achieving the desired goal.”

And to check armed banditry in Zamfara, the state government recently announced the suspension of weekly markets and restriction of fuel sales to the state capital and the headquarters of the local government areas of the state. In addition, no filling station is allowed to sell fuel in jerrycans, or of more than N10,000 to a single customer. The Kaduna State government has also ordered the suspension of weekly markets in Birnin Gwari, Chikun, Giwa, Igabi and Kajuru LGAs and banned sale of petrol in jerrycans in communities across the five local government areas.

In addition to deploying hard solutions, the SBM Intelligence recommended the inclusion of more effective training, equipment and deployment of police and military assets into banditry hot spots – while the government addresses inter-agency conflict in order to foster better cooperation and capacity development of Nigeria’s armed forces.

State governments should take the lead in promoting harmonious relations with long neglected communities – which will aid intelligence gathering – while partnering with the federal government to develop policies supportive of industries within their jurisdiction. This will increase capacities of businesses with comparative advantages and create a diversity of economic opportunities across the country, according to expert opinion.

But that is in the long run, in the short run, the government must urgently address the dangerous trend of teenagers taking to banditry in Zamfara and other parts of the northwest.

More worrisome is the case of suspected girl bandit, Maryam Sani, 16, who was recently arrested alongside her male accomplice, Haruna by a patrol team of vigilantes and officers of the Niger State Police Command.

Spokesperson of the command, ASP Wasiu Abiodun, said the suspects were arrested with two locally fabricated revolver rifles in Mariga LGA of the state.

During interrogation, Haruna attempted to escape and was gunned down by the Police.

Teen bandits, no doubt, pose a serious threat to the war to end banditry in Nigeria northwest. Worried by the situation, Zamfara Governor, Bello Matawalle, recently sounded the alarm that teen bandits were terrorising his state.

Ultimately, they constitute a scary outcrop of the region’s insecurity scourge even as their individual tragedies blend into the hobbling footprints of the region’s failed agricultural economy.

It’s harder to digest, however, their glowing admiration of bandit personae who harnessed their hitherto mundane, promising lives with strife.

The fates of Aliyu, 17, Badarawa, 18, and Kwatarkwashi, 16, among others, resonate a tragedy so intense it manifests as a protracted wail. Before he fell in love with bullets and the gun, Aliyu dreamt of being “a very big rice farmer.” Then he embraced banditry and strife, and his life transformed into a constant blur of anti-bullet charms, AK-47s, mindless rape and bloody raids on defenceless villages.

Caught in the fast thrill of the forest, he often tells himself, that he’s on a mission to rescue his mother and sisters abducted by fellow bandits.

Everyday, he prowls the fringes of the northwest on a mission only ruins could reveal; the forest heat kneading the rage in his heart and fat on his skin into liquid beads of carnage and sweat.

Life as a bandit oft becomes heated and extremely dangerous but Aliyu is ready to die with the gun. In his reckless, macabre life, peace is overrated and school, a terrible bore.

However, his loaded rifle spits nutriment to his malnourished mind. In Aliyu’s world, bullets glow like ‘dabino’ and a rocket launcher excites his thirst for mayhem.

Strife has poured into him its metal and chaos in queer doses. And Aliyu will give them back, first, in bitty slugs of rampage. Then, in mammoth dispensations of carnage and bloodlust.

“After I rescue my mother and sisters, I will leave this life,” he said, in the tenor of a boy afflicted by sudden recollection of his life before rage deflowered him and he pawned his innocence to the wild hoot of the forest.

Patriotism, contrary to delusory norms, thrives on cultural standards. The songs that every Nigerian knows by heart, the lore of nationhood, the politics of suburban and boondocks poetry, manifest the kernel of Nigeria’s culture and the substance of her sovereignty.

A similar dynamic undergirds our political and literary traditions. Politics thrives by literary culture and vice versa.

What shouldn’t we do for an evergreen story? What shouldn’t we give? Evergreen storylines make up the fabric of our collective narrative; when progressively spun, they are endlessly fascinating, yielding fresh insights through the imagination of the writer or filmmaker, who milks history and recalibrates reality to espouse a positive national lyric.

What is the Nigerian lyric? What is our reality? Nothing worth celebrating perhaps. In search of the proverbial elixir, we have drunk water from a noxious stream and filled our bellies with toxins.

The superiority of Western democracy is one of the supreme constructions of imperialism and the poisonous elixir of Nigeria and her neighbours on the African continent. Nigerians elevate it with obsessive love. It is the magic pill to the nation’s ceaseless headaches.

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Demagogues exploit its hackneyed tropes in a torrid caress of the vanities and base sentimentality of the gullible masses. Politicians chant its praise. Social commentators make extol its virtues in their vituperation in the mainstream and new media. Everybody is a sucker for its perceived benefits.

But the West must never be blamed for our collective ignorance – the United States in particular. The latter’s democratic enterprise is one of its most profitable constructions in its bid to make America great again, at any cost. It is both music and philosophy, a sensory stream of thought feeding generations of writers, political activists, filmmakers, politicians, gender rights activists, academia, and so on.

We must understand, however, that Western democracy and foreign policy, while deliberately presented as two tines on the same fork, are sustained by oft deceptive ideals and contradictory precepts of influence, crudely wedged into the nuclear powers’ global dominance stratagem. It is imperial politics without heart: ideologically deficit, dangerously manipulative, and Janus-faced.

Democracy and foreign aid do for America, what painting and sculpture did for the Italians. They are potent tools for wooing and recolonising the world. A few good minds with an intuitive grasp of the hard-edged imperialist designs of the Western agenda are spuriously labelled as conspiracy theorists.

Those who would die embracing and entrenching exotic doctrines must understand that there is no way this could be achieved without horror, given the marked differences in culture, temperament, and histories defining different nations of the world.

It’s about time we identified values complementary to our precepts of humane governance and development. We cannot dwell, for instance, like Americans or Brits in Nigeria. We can only assimilate aspects of their culture complimentary of ours. We must always synthesise, when need be, from the most humane sociopolitical cultures around the world.

The Japanese, Chinese, Bhutanese, Arabians, Europeans, Americans, Ghanaians, Rwandans, to mention a few, all have different aspects of their governance traditions and cultures that are worthy of emulation but not until we sieve and winnow them to make their preferred aspects amenable to our politics, economy and socio-cultural institutions. We must always remember that the Libyans, Afghans to mention a few, wildly embraced a dandy dream of freedom, but instead, they got trapped in a sinister nightmare. To date, they are paying dearly for it.

Back home, it’s even scarier to note that our arts and literature have become very weakened in our bid to entrench American and European Renaissance in our cultural frames. More worrisome is our artists’ rabid deconstruction of Nigerianness.

Writers and filmmakers, for instance, struggle to acculturate the Nigerian landscape with defective foreign mores. So doing, they corrupt their presentations and stifle the possibility of attaining homegrown, practicable solutions to oft politicised conflict. Nonetheless, they have a dedicated industry of cheerleaders and courtiers – journalists and so-called influencers – whose job is to romanticise their follies as the valiance sorely needed to reinvigorate Nigeria’s creative sector.

Themes glorifying repulsive gender wars, mindless youth rebellion, and the orchestration of social hierarchies are aggressively projected and patronised to the detriment of rational, progressive, and didactic art. This hurts us immeasurably.

While creative industries in America, Britain, China, India, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, France, to mention a few, commit genii and capital resources to constantly recreate and embellish their political narratives, with progressive outcomes, the Nigerian creative sector obsessively weaponises and projects vulgar themes of citizenship and romance.

The chthonic projection of Western depravities and virulent awareness has become a thing among local artists. We see it sprout across genres: drama, prose, poetry, and beyond. It seizes mainstream and indie filmmaking, corrupting Nollywood inside out, as you read.

Otherwise brilliant and perceptive filmmakers denounce patriotism and attack all it means to be Nigerian. Ultimately, they corrupt the artistic vocabulary of Nigeria’s literary arts, turning it into a meditation on society’s debauched nature as Nigeria’s secret truth. They celebrate degenerate spirit using aggressive cues of prurient art, promiscuity, gendered storms, and toxic sexuality.

While the consequences of such dross manifest in real-time, Nigeria welcomes from abroad, more insolent corruption of its media space by degenerate reality shows like the BBN without putting up a fight. The damage to cultural psyche is incalculable.

The United States had always appreciated the depth and promise of the arts, entertainment sector. Thus the US government and Hollywood’s symbiotic relationship. Washington DC provides intriguing plots for filmmakers and the latter reciprocates by glamourising the political class and reinventing America’s exploits on the global stage.

Between 1911 and 2017, more than 800 feature films received support from the US Government’s Department of Defence (DoD). These included blockbuster franchises such as the Iron Man, Transformers, and The Terminator.

On television, over 1,100 titles received Pentagon backing – 900 of them since 2005, from Flight 93 to Ice Road Truckers to Army Wives. The inclusion of individual episodes for shows with a cult following, like Homeland, 24, and NCIS, as well as the established influence of the White House and FBI, further establishes that the American government methodically supports thousands of hours of entertainment.

Aside from the profitable impact on the US entertainment sector, the entertainment partnership and offerings are oft deployed to foster a positive image for the United States on the international stage, while offering its citizens ample channels to exorcise their post-9/11 demons.

Films and literature could be used to foster national healing and patriotism. And they may also be used to destroy a people and ruin nations in pursuit of global good or the “enlightened self-interest” of a dubious superpower.

With very few exceptions, like Tunde Kelani and his Mainframe Studios, Nollywood churns out too many rabidly wrought revenge-fantasies in which the Nigerian female perpetually scores retribution over her treacherous male; lest we forget the increasingly base novel and TV plots by which Nigerian audiences are lured to nurse innate demons of toxic sexuality, ethnic intolerance, religious bigotry, virulent feminism, and sexist rage.

It’s about time the government partnered with the arts sector to reinvent the Nigerian story while channeling humane governance and patriotism.

It’s about time we refined the subtleties that make the Nigerian dream the fantasy of thieves, slatterns, and blinkered murderers.

INTEGRITY is innately borne and espoused as a kernel of character. But honour is a cosmic gift under no one’s control. It peaks and ebbs as spectator mood at a crunch soccer tie. Hence had he forged his character like decals, Professor Ishaq Oloyede would be unworthy of regard and applause.

He would be undeserving of reappointment as Registrar/Chief Executive of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for a second term of five years.

The furnace of public office soon melts off specious character, like poorly formed/forged decal; hauled inside the heat, only a man of unimpeachable fibre may emerge pristine, unscathed.

Inspired by his first tenure as JAMB Registrar, President Muhammadu Buhari reappointed Oloyede, apparently to consolidate on his previous achievements. His first time out, Oloyede effectively resolved a lot of the board’s operational hiccups. He curbed decisively, the abysmal performance that had plagued the board since its establishment in 1978.

This isn’t to say that Oloyede is an infallible knight. He definitely has his flaws – being only human. His administration betrays shortcomings that are markedly obvious. But in this moment, and for this purpose, all the character pieces fall in place, and to his credit – which informed the revalidation of his appointment by President Buhari on Friday, August 20.

Before Oloyede assumed leadership of JAMB, the board affected a ghostly performance on several counts. It’s conduct of examinations was shoddy. It’s issuance of results was equally problematic, blemished by outrageous and oft unforgivable irregularities.

But since Oloyede took over, JAMB has recorded appreciable success. He has revolutionised the examination process even as he pulled all the stops to the seamless synergy of fiscal and managerial operations of the organisation.

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He has done so much to institutionalise transparency in the system; it wasn’t until he assumed management of the board that it became clear to the federal government and every Nigerian, that JAMB could actually function as a cashcow.

Prior to Oloyede’s appointment, the total amount JAMB remitted to the federal government’s coffers between 2010 and 2016, for instance, was N 50,752,544, which was about one per cent of the N5 billion the agency remitted to the federal government in 2017 alone.

The apparently ludicrous nature of the remittances, pre-Oloyede era, spurred the federal government to institute a probe of previous heads of JAMB. The Federal Executive Council (FEC) subsequently ordered an inquiry of previous JAMB administrations over what it deemed poor revenue remittances in the past.

“Now they (JAMB) have not increased their charges, they have not increased their fees. The question that FEC and council members were asking was ‘where was this money before?’” former Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, reportedly said after the September 13 FEC meeting.

The accountant general’s office stated that N11,522,808 was remitted in 2011; N25, 303,274 was remitted in 2013 and N13,926,462 was remitted in 2014. There was no remittance in 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016, according to the office of the Accountant-General.

Despite its ridiculous earnings and scandalous period of non-remittances, JAMB subsisted as an ardent fund guzzler, digging a hole in the government’s purse. However, between 2016 and 2020, that is, Oloyede’s first tenure as Registrar, the examination board remitted about N28billion to the government’s coffers, despite reducing some of its charges.

In Oloyede’s performance, we see the exculpatory rousing that honesty in public office inspires. We see how sterling character and progressive deployment of higher learning distinguishes a person of authority cum public servant. The lambent complexion stays lucent, and the aura subsists.

To stay afloat the stormy seas of public office, Oloyede defined himself by a measure that he must always aspire to surpass. Perhaps he saw public office for what it was, a deceptive con game. And he would rather not get conned. Thus he fed his focus and starved his distractions.

Oloyede’s bid to reinvigorate JAMB seemed impossible in a clime maligned by institutionalised mishaps and administrative bottlenecks but bolstered by his stubborn resolve, he sought to achieve the impossible.

He resolutely nursed a vision of a disciplined, orderly, prosperous exams administrative organ, whatever the odds.

Of course, so much has been written about him – mostly patronising. While this too may resonate as yet another pitch to the chorus, it need be said that in saner clime, Professor Oloyede wouldn’t attract anything beyond the perfunctory tribute of a pat on the back.

After all, he had only been doing the job for which he was appointed, and for which he is being handsomely rewarded from public fund.

He has done nothing special by revolutionising JAMB operations while regularising studious remittances of its revenue into government purse perhaps. But in this clime, what he has done must be deemed worthy of emulation.

This is Nigeria, where Professors and supposedly esteemed dons of the academia have been used to rig national elections, not minding its consequent fallout on the populace whose mandate were stolen and dreams of progress extinguished.

Hence the emergence of an Oloyede is deserving of applause.

The core of his character was probably forged through his childhood. As it is said, the child is the father of the man. There is no gainsaying, he was raised on a humane diet of tough love and character-forming Islamic precepts.

Born on October 10, 1954, in Abeokuta, Ogun State, he lived in Shomolu, in Lagos, for a while, before his father moved them to their family house – built by him – in Akoka.  There, very close to the University of Lagos and St. Finbarr’s  College, as well as the Federal College of Education (Technical), he grew up under the eagle eyes of his dad, maternal grandmother and extended family members, having lost his mother at the tender age of four.

In a recent interview, he stated that his dream as a child was to be the best Muslim. “My dream as a child was to be the best Muslim I could be because I could see my parents. I could see members of my families being renowned Muslim scholars. As children growing up in those days, we weren’t dreaming of becoming anything other than to be able to be useful to the community. Maybe after admission to the university then we could start dreaming of a career path.”

Thus his pursuit of Islamic Studies up to doctoral level was certainly an auspicious venture, and Nigeria is the better for it.

He attended the Progressive Institute, Agege, Lagos, between 1969 and 1973, and the Arabic Training Centre, (Markaz) in Agege, Lagos, from 1973-1976.  He later went for further Arabic training in Offa, Ilorin and the University of Ibadan (UI), where he obtained a certificate in Arabic and Islamic Studies between 1976 and 1977.

In 1976, after completing his diploma, he was engaged to teach at Queen’s College, Lagos. He was on Level 07 at the time but he felt that the best thing for him to do was to discontinue work. Despite the kind of salary that he earned at the time and the possibility of securing  a car loan, he felt that he should continue his education. So he returned to school. He proceeded to the Kwara State College of Education to start a National Certificate in Education. Although he did not need an NCE, he sought a school environment in order to repeat the GCE O’ level examination in English, which was the only barrier between him and getting an admission through direct entry. He spent one year there and afterwards proceeded to the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) for direct entry because he already obtained a diploma from UI.

He subsequently attended UNILORIN in 1978, where he studied Arabic and was awarded a B.A. Arabic (First Class Hons) in 1981. In July 1982 he was appointed an Assistant Lecturer in  the Department of Religions of the University. In 1991, he earned his Doctorate degree in Islamic Studies also from UNILORIN.

Prof. Oloyede earned several scholarships and prizes during his student days, notable among which were the Arab League prize for the best final year Certificate student in Arabic and Islamic Studies in 1977 at the University of Ibadan; Federal Government undergraduate merit award from 1979 to 1981; Department of Religions Award, University of Ilorin, 1981 and Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Award, Unilorin also in 1981. He was appointed Deputy Vice – Chancellor (Academic) on June 19, 2003 and Deputy Vice -Chancellor (Administration) on July 6, 2005.

Professor Oloyede is an accomplished academic, Islamic scholar and luminary public intellectual. Starting as an Assistant Lecturer in 1982, he rose steadily through the ranks to become a globally respected Professor in 1995 with several articles, authored and co-authored, in reputable local and international outlets. He was elected the Vice Chancellor of his alma mater, University of Ilorin, on October 15, 2007, for a single term of five years during which the university was deeply transformed, attaining high rank among the best in Africa and one of the most sought-after universities in Nigeria.

In 2015, he was appointed the Second Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Third Governing Council of Fountain University, Nigeria. He is also one of the International Advisory Board members of International Network for Higher Education in Africa (INHEA). Since 2013, he has been the Secretary-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA).

Since assumption of office, Oloyede has been widely celebrated for transforming JAMB into a reference point in effective public service delivery and accountability with many unprecedented exploits.

The native of Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State, has distinguished himself as a lot of things: a revolutionary, a provocateur, a committed Muslim, and scholar; Oloyede is a wellspring of cultural commentary and public service inspiration.

He just might be the answer to Nigeria’s call for a new generation of leadership.

Like white rose growing on concrete slabs or the daring mushroom that pierces the motionless eternity of earth, pushing clearly but obstinately, through faint form, till the hour of fertility strikes, Oloyede has fluorished where many got corrupted and cowed in defeat.

Shedding doubts like worn covering, he tilled the thick darkness of endeavour, on whose cliff flowery deeds sprout, till the carnations of light overwhelmed the contemptible famine of night.

Perhaps, his second time out as JAMB’s Registrar would gift the nation with more luminous blooming.

Democracy in Afghanistan was unarmoured, an artifact of aggressive forging.

While it lasted, it floundered nebulously against the furnace of insurgent Taliban. Yet it was an ideal to live for.

Supervised by the United States’ military might, bolstered by NATO, its stratagem resonated themes found all over the world, a conflict between definitiveness and dissolution of state.

Refuting it was deemed suicidal and redolent of the Taliban’s oppressive instincts and wild inclinations to propel Afghanistan to self-destruct. Accepting it, however, portended dangerous freedom. That barbaric power spuriously wished away in a hail of allied offensive and defensive military campaign has stirred into a beast, plunging Afghanistan into dystopic hell. The beast now waits in every glade, returned to its wild perch in nature.

Afghanistan is back in hell’s kitchen, perhaps. The country’s capital, Kabul, fell on August 15, 2021, to the Taliban forces whose leadership assumed de facto control over most of the country and subsequently pronounced the country as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Prior to the Taliban takeover, the government, consisted of the cabinet of ministers, provincial governors, and the national assembly, with President  Ashraf Ghani serving as the head of government and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Ghani, who was backed by two vice presidents, Amrullah Saleh and Sarwar Danish until Ghani fled to Uzbekistan as the Taliban took over the capital.

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In the last decade, Afghan politics have been influenced by the U.S. and other NATO countries, in an effort to stabilise and democratise the country. In 2004, the nation’s new constitution was adopted and an executive president was elected. The following year a general election to choose parliamentarians took place.

Hamid Karzai was declared the first-ever democratically elected head of state in Afghanistan in 2004, winning a controversial second five-year term in 2009. The National Assembly was Afghanistan’s national legislature. It was a bicameral body, composed of the House of the People and the House of Elders. The first legislature was elected in 2005 and the most recent one in 2018. Members of the Supreme Court were appointed by the president to form the judiciary. Together, this system served to provide a set of checks and balances.

Despite this massive investment in stabilising the country, it fell to the bullets of the Taliban.

The U.S. President Joe Biden, probably summed up the ugly truth in his claim that there would never be a right time or less messy circumstance for America to quit Afghanistan.

He condemned Afghanistan’s elected leaders and military for yielding so cheaply to the Taliban, stressing that they squandered the time and money America spent to assist their security forces.

He said, “We gave them every tool they could need…We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them, was the will to fight for that future.”

Biden said it was “wrong” to put Americans in harm’s way to do a job that Afghanistan wouldn’t do itself. “I am president of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me,” he said. “I’m deeply saddened by the facts we now face, but I do not regret my decision to end America’s war-fighting in Afghanistan.”

Lesson learnt. The United States’ hasty desertion of Afghanistan after 20 years of carnage and war with the Taliban offers timeless lessons. It’s instructive that the country lost the war despite its supposed backing by America and NATO’s military intelligence and might.

In recent weeks, the Taliban advanced across the north of the country, claiming possession of over two dozen districts against feeble resistance by a severely demoralised Afghan army and police.

The nation’s armed forces retreated to fight on the outskirts of key cities such as Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif. Senior U.S. officials have warned of a civil war, in the wake of a forecast of the complete collapse of the Afghan government within a year – which the United States had worked to strengthen for two decades.

Would Nigeria learn from Afghanistan? It’s about time we understood that nobody could love our country more than we do. Joe Biden could never love Nigeria more than Muhammadu Buhari. The U.S. president, like his predecessors, sees Nigeria as a mere tool for preserving his country’s enlightened self-interest. It’s as simple as that.

No foreign media would ever aspire to utmost social responsibility in reporting Nigeria; that is a role best served by patriotic segments of the local press.

Thus journalists and civil societies, in particular, must desist henceforth from inflaming the polity via incendiary statements and reports. The lust for NGO patronage should never incite them to mortgage national interests for hard currency – whatever the slant of their greed and their sponsors’ professed intent.

Social media, in particular, has become a major source of warmongering for separatists and fake news aficionados; in truth, they are all terrorists. Those who spread fake news in bid to incite carnage and hatred against any individual, tribe, social or religious group must be prosecuted as terrorists. We do not need another civil war. We must not give the doomsayers the opportunity to gloat; since their prediction of Nigeria’s collapse by 2015 failed, they had been left smarting in shame and earnestly committed to Nigeria’s death-watch.

It’s about time we learned from Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and victims of the obscenely romanticised Arab Spring. Neither America nor Europe must be blamed for our inclinations to self-destruct.

Carter Malkasian, author of The American War in Afghanistan: A History, served as a civilian advisor in Iraq and Afghanistan; according to him, throughout his travels with U.S. military commanders around Afghanistan, he saw numerically superior and better-supplied soldiers and police suffer incessant defeats by poorly resourced and unexceptionally led Taliban.

While the U.S. and Afghan forces fought for hegemony and money respectively, the Taliban soldiers were inspired by faith and a divine nirvana. They were united in belief and purpose as they fought to thwart a common enemy: the American soldiers of occupation and their Afghan enablers.

May we not face a similar threat from Boko Haram, ISWAP, armed bandits, and spurious separatist groups.

Corruption was part of Afghanistan’s problem. The military and police suffered as their commanders and government officials pocketed their pay, hoarded ammunition, and sabotaged the counterinsurgency operations.

Predictably, the soldiers and police refused to lay their lives on the line for corrupt leadership. In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in one week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly 20 years to bolster Afghan security forces.

In a Monday footage identifiable as one of the defining images of the Taliban takeover, Afghans clung to the side of a departing U.S. military jet as it rolled down the tarmac on Monday. Some of them fell to their death as the aircraft gained altitude, according to agency reports.

The U.S. authorities estimated that at least seven people died during the chaotic evacuation at the airport, including several who fell from the military jet.

The Afghan nightmare evidently mirrors the Nigerian situation. Thus we must scorn poisonous interventions by countries whose major interest is to abolish our sovereignty, plunder our resources, and strip us bare to devious elements.

By Olatunji Ololade

A multitude of youths, disgruntled and starved, may flirt with strife and call it ‘revolt,’ just as a swarm of mosquitoes can make a noise like thunder. But when they emerge, irate and drugged-out, Nigeria should flinch.

It gets scarier where their ignorance, intemperance, and rage enjoy the caress of a dubious demagogue. They launch like loose canons at the slightest provocation. Left to their devices, they are feckless and sterile.

My recent sojourn across Lagos’ drug dens manifested as a pilgrimage. I encountered several teenagers venting in the vice-grip of harsh psychotropic substances. At drug dens in Alimosho local government area, for instance, many of them claimed to find escape from their daily travails in hard drugs.

Bingeing indiscriminately on local brews like Gutter Juice aka Omi Gota, and its variants like Colorado, Pamilerin, containing rohypnol, tramadol, Indian Hemp, codeine, and cocaine, they blamed the government for keeping them unemployed and out of school. They also blamed the government for bad roads, insecurity, and persistent looting of the public coffers.

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My encounters revealed, among other things, that, many are the same social products as their elders and peers in the political class. They vented their bitter, desperate intent to chance on sudden and stupendous wealth, by hook or crook – as canonised by the political class.

They dream and speak of a revolution that would redistribute power to their hands. How could such vitally impaired characters be trusted to conduct their affairs appropriately and judiciously?

It is the tragedy of the moment that Nigeria’s youth obsess more about fulfilling debauched stereotypes than building and securing a progressive future. Burrowing through decadent enslavement to find bliss, they fulfill a theatrical pledge of acceptance to dominance by a predatory political class.

The latter know that beneath their cries of misery and clamour for change, subsists a tireless yearning to be demeaned, enslaved, browbeaten, and deployed as minstrels of carnage and death, across their impoverished neighbourhoods, for a token.

If thus preoccupied, there is no way they could pay good mind to more beneficial causes, like training their minds to participate in free and fair elections, where they vote for truly humane and patriotic candidates.

The incumbent administration of President Muhammadu Buhari identifies the harsh criticism and protests trailing the increment as the citizenry’s Initial Gra Gra (IGG) – their theatrical artifice to the government’s ‘tactical plunder.’ They consider it a futile, necessary performance of dissent as the citizenry wails, the economy lies comatose, insecurity worsens, and Nigeria becomes ungovernable and inhabitable to the poor, in particular.

It is about time the youth moved past their lofty expectations of the incumbent ruling class and opposition figures, knowing they are all borne of dubious intent. A continual belief in the possibility that Nigeria might prosper and stabilize on their watch is tantamount to a malady, a conceptual persistence of mental and ethical disorders.

Corruption and duplicity are the ritual links between the political oligarchs and the youth. The latter’s unquestioning belief in the former thus manifests as a triumph of fetishism; the consequences are all around us. We are on the receiving end of them. But who could lead us out of this quagmire? Not the hordes of youths peopling our rural and suburban drug dens.

As you read, more youths, teens especially, are trapped in the rapture of hallucinogenic substances but they are ignored in plain sight by regulatory authorities. Between 2018 and 2019, nearly 15% of Nigeria’s adult population reported a “considerable level” of use of psychotropic drug substances, a rate much higher than the 2016 global average of 5.6% among adults, according to a study led by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse with technical support from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and funding from the European Union.

It showed the highest levels of drug use were recorded among people aged between 25 to 39 but excluded teenagers drowning in the stark grip of psychotropic substances like Gutter Juice perhaps because they fall outside the radar of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

Gutter Juice has attained prominence particularly among teenagers and the consequences of taking it is often devastating on the user and their families. Dr. Oluwayemisi Ogun, the Medical Director (MD) of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital (FNPH), Yaba, recently sounded an alarm over the prevalence of drug abuse induced mental disorders among children, adolescents, and adult Nigerians, stressing that over 150 new cases are admitted at the hospital and its Child and Adolescent Centre, Oshodi Annexe every week.

Just recently, Abiodun Toye, a 16-year-old developed acute psychosis soon after binging on the brew. He is currently chained to the floor at a traditional mental home in Ogun State even as Dr. Ogun insists that he is better off in the care of qualified FNPH personnel.

But the consequences are no deterrent to hordes of teenagers trooping in thralldom in pursuit of irregular highs by the extremely dangerous potion, and other variants including Colorado, Pamilerin, recklessly sold and consumed across Lagos’ drug dens.

My findings revealed that a litre of Gutter Juice is easily available to teenagers at a fraction of the cost of hitherto elusive narcotics, like cocaine. On average, users spend N9,000 per day on cocaine. This amount is half of the national minimum wage per month. However, one litre of standard Gutter Juice costs N3,000 while a 50cl bottle costs N1, 500.

It’s hard not to panic over the prevalence of a drug that leaves devastating marks on its victims like paranoia, hallucinations and strung out physical collapse, not to mention the loss of inhibitions, brain damage, and predisposition to violence, according to mental health experts.

Yet the dealers and users passionately answer as willing muscles, and army for achieving the mother of all revolutions as romanticised by random segments of Nigeria’s citizenry, the elite, middle class in particular.

The truth often rankles a sore note. If you are elite, middle class, you won’t watch the revolution happen on TV because you will be in the thick of it. Since you have failed to emerge as the heart of a bloodless one, you will suffer the blows of a bloody one.

The teen armies of the revolt, severely agitated and drugged out, will storm your homes while you enjoy family time and movie hour with loved ones, in your serene, gated suburbs, and amid the manicured lawns of your high society. They will intrude your peace, wielding guns, machetes and clubs indiscriminately furnished them by the predatory ruling class, to assault, rape, and hack you and your loved ones to death.

At the dawn of the revolt, you will be identified as the enemy of the people, and tarred with the same brush as the proverbial one percent supposedly feeding fat off Nigeria and the citizenry’s bare bones.

This is possible because we have lost our sense of ethics and nationhood, and embraced the erosion of our culture. The consequences are distressingly visible in the teenagers and young adults trooping in a daze, to dip their heads in Gutter Juice, in order to escape the present and detach from a belief in the future.

The current enthrallment with the politically correct aspirant will end in a splash of spittle and a curl of the tongue inwards. No doubt. But this minute, vistas of the 2023 elections unfurl like another fragile fiction of ‘Change.’

Amid the racket, dreams of progress bloom like a fictional retreat. An elaborate simplicity. A Nabokovian invention of rarefied detail, as Gardner would say.

Incensed by the fiery mantras: “Change!” and “Change the Change!” citizens marched to both real and taught indignation, ignorance, and unabashed arrogance, to stretch their necks for a leash of cash, bigotry, and sound bites at the 2019 general elections.

Two years on, they have resumed howling from dawn through dusk, threatening litters of tumult atop the soapbox, forgetting that the storms they incited would eventually consume them and weaker, wretched compatriots. But they are making good their threats anyway and increasing the swell of trodden demise via terrorism. The press would sensationalise the tragedies they incite in reportage that stretch beyond the photographs of civil deaths.

It’s all part of a recurrent script. Some would call it the Naija-theory of things. I would call it the therapy of the breadlines; the deputation of evil from one social class to the other.

The heathen dialectic of Nigerian politics depicts electorate mind and nature. Nigerians vote for tribe, money, and random bigotries. Many vote to actualise established and latent hostilities thus the voter’s card becomes a weapon to torment a rival ethnic group and religious divide, seasonally.

Both the 2015 and 2019 general elections fulfilled horrid stereotypes in Nigeria’s perpetuation of hate and bigotries. The electorate, severely divided along religious, ethnic divides, voted for Muhammadu Buhari and Goodluck Jonathan, and then Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, respectively, in fulfillment of the ugliest sentimentality.

Few voters could convincingly articulate their reasons for choosing their candidate.  True, a depressed economy, sky-rocketing inflation, and embarrassing corruption across tiers of government substantiated the debate for and against each contender.

For most voters, however, the decisive factor was the religious affiliation and ethnic root of the contestants. The malady subsists to date; as Nigeria prepares for the 2023 elections, the electorate separates into two factions, spawned on ethnic and religious bigotries. Whatever their frantic narratives, they are inmates of familiar mental jail cells.

Education is the key out of such captivity. Being educated, however, hardly translates to insightfulness. Intelligence is morally neutral. It can be used to further the exploitation of the electorate by predatory oligarchs and corporations, or it can be used to defeat the forces of oppression.

Where intelligence is docile, the educated man evolves like a bitch; a scrawny, sheeplike mutt, led only by wild instincts and subservience to a crafty, self-seeking shepherd. Oligarchic tyranny is bodacious and corruptive of intellect thus the unstated ethic of sheepish intelligentsia is to amass a fortune while justifying the dominance of their oligarch masters.

Little wonder hack-writers, sponsored NGOs, and the academia commit to the sustenance of oligarchic choke-hold on Nigeria. Come 2023, we must acknowledge the inevitability of gifting power to yet another blundering oligarch – given our lack of a truly progressive, credible opposition from more vibrant, promising demographics.

Thus we resume foraging in the desert end of our green pasture. Youthful segments of the electorate display political illiteracy that is embarrassingly sentimental and far-flung. In response, rival parties re-invent a political devil in each other, to exploit voter ignorance and intolerance.

The youth rant that they have been excluded from power at the state and federal levels yet they have populated Nigerian politics for 61 years as thugs, murderers, arsonists, vote buyers and sellers, and rhetoricians. They are deployed every political season as emissaries of violence and death by aspirants who previously identified as youths five to seven decades ago.

Nigeria’s current dilemma is a consequence of bad choices. There is an urgent need for the country’s enlightened youth and elder-statesmen to seek each other out in wisdom and coalesce into more definitive roles.

True change can only be driven by true patriots vying on untarnished platforms. Platforms matter as much as the candidates. Failure to get these right has often foisted on the electorate, limited choices.

Our situation demands urgent, proactive steps by progressive change-makers. The first is to provide a foundation for the unity of ideas and cause and to do it very quickly. The second is to evolve a social agenda that strengthens the ideals of progressive enlightenment, common progress, commonwealth, and moral autonomy.

To prevent this, the ruling class deploys what Adorno called “the manipulative character.” The manipulative character, argues Hedges, has superb organizational skills yet is unable to have authentic human experiences. He or she is an emotional cripple. Such characters in government are driven by frantic delusions of self-worth and an overvalued realism of their governance style.

Every manipulative character and government, however, thrives by pawns. The latter performs the role of a systems manager. Pawns by default are inclined to sustain the corrupt structure. Think the corruptible press and civil societies.

Education, I reiterate, is the key out of this mental jail cell. More realistic learning divorced from the pricey occupational training by which tertiary schools turn several youths into mindless certificate-seeking machines.

While violence and terrorism are often mistaken as the essence of revolutions, the fundamental tool of any successful revolution is the non-violent conversion of the oft violent forces deployed by the state to bully and restore order, to the side of the rebels. Most successful revolutions are, therefore, fundamentally non-violent.

Revolutionary movements, however, fail in Nigeria because the arrowheads continually cloak their measures and homilies in hostilities and platitudinous chants; such hackneyed dialect is a barrier to effective communication and progress.

It is the same dialect adopted by political, corporate players to cheat the electorate of their votes and rig the financial system in the obscure, cryptic language coined by their propaganda labs.

To strip them of power, a new class of political leadership must emerge to assert the mental and moral freedom of the citizenry by communicating in a language comprehensible to the common man.

Now is a good time to start. We must begin to teach our graduates and undergrads, street urchins, traders, commercial transporters, armed forces, and the unemployed, to scorn vote seekers who only visit the electorate to share corn meals and hold town-hall meetings at the dawn of general elections.

Teach them to scorn leadership that commits crumbs of their constituency allowances to empower their constituents with wheelbarrows, machetes, sachet water, and pepper grinding machines, among others.

It was Sparta that celebrated raw militarism, discipline, obedience, and power, but it was Athenian art and philosophy that echoed down the ages to enlighten new worlds, including ours.

In the same vein, while soldiers and politicians jostled for political spoils at several fronts in post-independence Nigeria, deploying gruesome violence and massacre, it was Obafemi Awolowo’s political intelligence and his deployment of state resources to drive educational and socio-economic growth of the southwest region that echoes down the ages.

Many beneficiaries of Awo’s statesmanship currently occupy public offices as governors, lawmakers, and presidential aides but they lack the intelligence that’s the essence of progressive politics, transformation, and growth. Thus Nigeria will never prosper by them.

They are the ones whose dominance we must quash.