Kaduna State made headline news last week, albeit for bad reasons. The state appeared to have taken an ignoble lead over Borno State, in the high number of children abducted from their school premises by sundry terrorists, bandits and kidnappers.
Whereas the Boko Haram insurgents that invaded the Chibok Secondary School in Borno State in 2014 struck in the dead of the night, the terrorists that attacked Kuriga LEA Primary and Government Secondary Schools in the Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna state were bold enough to invade during the day.
The time of the attack and high number of abductees stand out the Kuriga incident over and above other school children abduction that had taken place in that part of the country. Numbering more than 100, the well-armed bandits that struck immediately after the early morning assembly, herded the teachers and school children into the adjoining forest.
That was the beginning of a tortuous journey that could lead to the incarceration or even death of some of the school children; many of them toddlers. Initial attempts by some local vigilante to thwart the abduction and secure the release of the children ended in some fatalities.
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When the dust settled, a total of 287 children from both schools were found to have been ferried away by the rampaging terrorists. Some of the children, who were lucky to have escaped, spoke of their horrifying encounter as they were horsewhipped and made to trek inside the forest for hours without end.
It has taken many days since the abduction with no traces of the children in sight. Curiously and in contrast with the Chibok incident, Kaduna State does not share any boundary with neighbouring countries that may inject some complication in the location of the children’s whereabouts. Yet, neither any trace of them has been of public knowledge nor was there any success in aborting the abduction somewhere along the terrorists route.
Before the Kuriga mass kidnap of school children, the so-called bandits had invaded the Gonin Gora area of Kaduna metropolis twice in four days, abducting 16 residents altogether. That was not all.
Within the same week, no fewer than 61 persons were reportedly abducted by bandits/terrorists that attacked the Buda community in the Kajuru Local Government Area of the same Kaduna State. The terrorists had invaded the community at night shooting sporadically before abducting the victims.
Kaduna had also in 2021 witnessed a series of attacks, killings and senseless abduction of students of institutions of higher learning suggestive of a choreographed campaign to discourage education. Greenfield University and the Federal College of Forestry, Afaka fell victims that year. Baptist Bethel High School among other key establishments in that state did not equally fare better in the hands of the rampaging terrorists.
But what stood out the Gonin Gora incident is neither the sheer number of the abductees (16) nor the two residents killed by the invaders before they fled. The incident is remarkable for the scandalous and unreasonable demands the terrorists were reported to have made as condition for the freedom of the 16 captives.
A community leader in the area, John Yusuf shocked many when he reeled out the extravagant ransom demanded by the terrorists. Yusuf said the bandits called and demanded N40trn, 11 Hilux vans and 150 motorcycles as ransom.
It is yet unclear how and the location this humongous amount of money, vehicles and motorcycles will be delivered if it is possible to source them. But even as we contend with these ridiculous and outlandish ransom demands, their very nature is bound to throw up salient issues that can only be ignored at our collective peril.
This is the first time such unreasonable ransom demand is surfacing since the bug of kidnapping crept into our social chessboard. That should ordinarily raise questions as to the purpose the terrorists intend to achieve this time around.
Could it be a joke taken too far? Or is the intention to direct the collective conscience of our leaders to the new dimension such malfeasance has possibly assumed? There is also the issue of how the terrorists intend to deploy the humongous amount of money, vehicles and motorcycles. Where will the 11 Hilux vans and 150 motorcycles be delivered to them – within the shores of this country or outside of it? And will that not give out their location to the security agencies?
Beyond these, the impression one gets is that banditry/terrorism is fast assuming the shape of a carefully organised enterprise perhaps, competing with the government for spheres of influence and authority. N40tn is more than the N25tn provided in the 2024 national budget by N15tn. That conveys the unmistakable impression of a government within a government- a republic of sorts. When the cost of the Hilux vans and motorcycles are summed up, the figures become even more scaring.
Assuming it is possible to meet all the demands of these terrorists nicknamed bandits, the purpose for which these monies, vehicles and motorcycles will be deployed should be a serious concern to the federal government. The boldness and audacity of the bandits, the relative ease with which they levy mayhem and disappear into the thin air, constitute a potent challenge to the authority of the government.
Before now, we had been told bandits were acquiring sophisticated weapons including the capacity to bring down aircrafts. There have also been suggestions that the ransom they collect is mainly deployed for the purchase of arms and ammunitions to further their murderous activities.
The demands by the Gonin Gora terrorists evoke such prospects. The terrorists that kidnapped 287 students and teachers in Kuriga are also demanding N1billion as ransom or they kill the abductees within three weeks. With a ransom demand that rubbishes the national budget, the prospects of non-state actors metamorphosing into an alternative government competing for the loyalty of the citizens have become a frightening reality. It conjures the imprimatur of a republic of the bandits/terrorists within the federal republic of Nigeria.
It is only in a bandits’ republic that N40trn, 11 Hilux vans and 150 motorcycles can be delivered and received as ransom by sundry criminals without severe consequences. Curiously, Kaduna is a landlocked state. It does not share any boundary with our foreign neighbours to suggest complicity in ferrying out of the children beyond our shores.
For that to happen, the terrorists must have to collaborate with their evil counterparts in other states. Could the bandits have crossed these boundaries with large expanse of land for days and weeks with toddlers without detection?
So, it is safer to assume the captured children are surely within our shores. And that makes the matter more troubling. It speaks of conspiracy in high and low quarters. How come these children were marched through the large expanse of the Kaduna landscape for days without any trace?
Neither the surveillance of the Nigerian Air Force nor the new technology that aided the Nigerian Army to detect suspicious bandits’ movement that led to the unfortunate Tudun Biri killings in the Igabi Local Government Area of the same state, could be of any help. It says much about the level of progress we have made between the abduction of the Chibok girls in 2014 and nearly 10 years after.
It speaks of parallels between the 2014 Chibok and the 2024 Kuriga abductions. Coincidentally, the current vice president, Kashim Shetima was the governor of Borno State when the Chibok girls were kidnapped. Kaduna is now bearing the brunt of organised terrorism for inexplicable reasons.
It is difficult to forget in a hurry some of the vile issues traded then, including the allegation by former governor of Adamawa State, Muritala Nyako that Book Haram was a subterfuge by purported enemies of the north to depopulate that region. Ten years thereon, the likes of Nyako – and they are legion – should know better.
We are being told that the solution to the metastasising insurgency lies in negotiation with the bandits whose grievances have at best, remained amorphous. We are all victims of the divisive politics of the past; the refusal by our leaders to form national consensus on potent challenges to law and order and our corporate being. The current insurgency in the country is not for nothing. It is time to resolve the nagging puzzle of differentiating between the Boko Haram terrorists, the bandits and the herdsmen.
Only then shall the real motivation of the dark forces behind the cascading terrorism become clearer. But it is definitely getting late.
