The viral video by a band of insurgents celebrating the purported capture of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles of the Nigerian Army in Zamfara State forests has again elevated to the fore, the complex nature of insecurity in the northwest.
In that video, the terrorists sang songs of victory depicting themselves to have captured the war vehicles in combat with the Nigerian Armed Forces. The well-organised and well-armed insurgents made remarks and proclamations depicting them as a group spurred by some weird doctrinaire.
They did not stop at their bogus celebrations but went ahead to burn down the two MRAP’s. That outing no doubt, created serious consternation, raising fears of possible upsurge in terrorism in Zamfara State notorious, for what is ordinarily called banditry in official circles. Banditry? We shall return to this!
Defence Headquarters (DHQ) was so touched by the video display that they issued a statement debunking some of the impressions created by the insurgents. Their account was that troops had embarked on a fighting patrol to dislodge a terror gathering at Kwashabawa village, Zurmi LGA of Zamfara State. In the process, two of their MRAP’s got bogged down due to the swampy terrain caused by the rains during the fight.
While trying to extricate the MRAP’s, the DHQ said terrorists massed up. “Subsequently troops dismounted and demobilised the MRAP’s when efforts to backload them proved futile”. The measure they said was to prevent the terrorists from using the war vehicles even as they admitted that “these situations are not uncommon in war”.
That appears a veiled admission that Nigeria is currently at war with terrorists in that part of the country. The disclosure is significant given attempts by officials of the government to obfuscate the real nature and dynamics of the insurgency in the northwest. Before now, the impression was that the festering insecurity in that part of the country is all about banditry.
This mix-up was evident in the statement issued by the office of the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle in reaction to the video claims by the insurgents. Matawalle had while directing the military to relocate its command structure to the northwest, urged them to address the worsening security situation.
He expressed deep concerns over the activities of terrorists and bandits terrorising Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina and Kebbi states. While in the region, the minister would be leading the military to ensure that Bello Turji and his gang of bandits are eliminated.
As can be gleaned from Matawalle’s statement, terrorism and banditry were used interchangeably to characterise the insecurity in the northwest. But they denote different criminal engagements. And the inability of our leaders to come clear on the nature and wider dynamics of insecurity in that region is largely responsible for the difficulty encountered by our security agencies in taming the monster.
Though the minister’s account of the circumstances leading to the ‘capture’ of the MRAP’s by the terrorists tallied essentially with that of the DHQ, there are still untidy issues in the encounter. It remains cloudy whether there was some form of intelligence to ascertain the terrain before the military embarked on the fighting patrol to dislodge the terror gathering at Kwashabawa.
But then, in the account of the DHQ on why they had to demobilize the MRAPs, nothing was said of air support in such dire circumstances except perhaps, that the weather was inclement. This sounds like excuses. It may equally be genuine excuses but it definitely makes a statement on the combat capacities and readiness of our armed forces.
In circumstances of this nature where the ground forces faced serious risk of mortal attacks, air support would have been the game changer. Even if a helicopter was made to fly over that terrain during those perilous hours, that would have been sufficient to deter the terrorists and save the MRAPs.
Nothing of such happened. So where were the celebrated Tucano fighter jets acquired from the USA not long ago to fight terrorism? Or was the inability to deploy the fighter jets bogged down by the terms of agreement for the use of the jets restricting them only to the fight against terrorism? If that was the case, then the federal government was caught by the contradiction of its inability to proclaim the festering insecurity in the northwest as terrorism.
It was not good enough we lost these two key war vehicles to the terrorists in the circumstances we have been told. Equally of note, were references by the DHQ to war. “These situations are not uncommon in war. The ever changing environment of war creates some of these experiences”, the DHQ stated in justification to their decision to demobilise and abandon the MRAPs.
That may well be. Perhaps, this is the first time the nation is made to know that we are really at war in the northwest. Before now, the story we are fed with has been that of the so-called bandits raiding villages and markets in search of food, kidnapping at will for ransom and committing sundry atrocities.
It is not clear how and at what point the term banditry crept into our insecurity lexicon or what differentiated it from the well known Boko Haram insurgents whose ideological promptings were identifiable. Somehow, we came to accept the brand of insecurity in the northwest as banditry even as its characterisation remained opaque.
Fiery Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi seemingly came to our aid in profiling the bandits after he interfaced with them in the forests. In an interview after the meeting, the bandits’ leaders gave their grievances as cattle rustling, attacks on them by the Nigerian military and the beating of the Fulani on the roads by some indigenous people. These grievances blurred the lines dividing the so-called bandits from herders. It was on this score Gumi called for amnesty for them.
But that is not the profile of the insurgent group we saw around the MRAPs. It was a well-armed, sophisticated fighting force propelled by some form of ideology against the Nigerian state. My Hausa interpreter said they made references to religious war ‘Jihad’ and protection from the Nigerian state even as they beckoned their colleagues to raze down the MRAPs.
These are by no means the type of bandits Gumi interfaced with. These are no herders and cannot possibly complain of cattle rustling. They are brave and committed fighters. They are bold enough to show their faces and damn the consequences. So, the DHQ was right to categorise their outing in that part of the country as a situation of war. The sooner we come to terms with this reality, the better for the country.
Even when some of them surrounded the MRAPs with sophisticated weaponry adorning military camouflage, others kept a good distance in anticipation of possible attack. Who knows the strength and number of others hiding in possible ambush?
Their conduct had the imprimatur of war. If you found banditry in their activities, it is in furtherance of the war agenda. And if they kidnap for ransom, it is all for the prosecution of the war. Our leaders should stop confusing issues by describing the insurgency in the northwest as banditry. It is terrorism propelled by the same weird ideological prompting that spurred the Boko Haram insurgents into action.
It is inappropriate to continue profiling Bello Turji as leader of a bandits’ gang. How Turji transmuted into his current powerful status is an interesting one. But it is worthy of note that while Matawalle was the governor of Zamfara State, Turji was a significant face in the so-called banditry enterprise.
He had before now, been very critical of the previous policy of the Zamfara State government under Matawalle. He had alleged in a video that the policy of the former governor was the reason insecurity escalated in Zamfara and north-western states.
As governor, Matawalle initiated an amnesty scheme that provided financial rewards and protection for bandits who surrendered their arms and abandoned criminality. But in the widely circulated video, Turji alleged the scheme succeeded in empowering some of his colleagues residing in the cities from where they commanded bandits operating in the forests.
A Zamfara group – Concerned Citizens for Peace, Security and Development toed similar lines in faulting the amnesty scheme of the previous government. They claimed to have uncovered a strong collaboration between state officials including traditional rulers and security agencies with the bandits. They categorised the peace accord as nothing but a high wired deception to divert attention from the real issues behind the root causes of banditry, its sponsors and enablers.
These issues have resonated with the linking of Turji and his band of so-called bandits to the ‘capture’ and burning down of the MRAPs. Where do these lead us to?
