The 2019 general elections over with the candidate I support, sitting President Muhammadu Buhari, returned to office with a whooping over 3M plurality of votes over his main opponent, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, I think the time has come for me, and all who love this country to talk truth, not just to power, but to ourselves. I say this because of the dire, and extremely precarious, circumstances Nigeria now finds itself, only marginally better than Somali,Sudan and Syria at the apogee of its recent mass murders, especially after Russia escalated the all time butchery to a World War 11 killing equivalent .
While in Syria the casus belli was regime preservation, ours – banditry, kidnapping and terrorism as in Boko Haram, are largely the consequences of a century old feudalism in Northern Nigeria. And it is not as if the Northern aristocracy was not warned because Awo did, severally, and repeatedly, pointing out the disadvantages of mass illiteracy, and without a doubt, his free and compulsory education, introduced in the West in 1955, ought to have served as enough leitmotif for the then entire three regions. It must today be haunting that leadership that when Ahmadu Bello encouraged education in the Southern fringes of the North, especially in today’s Kwara and parts of Kogi- areas where professors are now literally three for a penny, in the core North going to school was seen as reducing the rankadede battalon made up of the poor and their children.
With the present revolt of the Almajiri, the chicken have come home to roost.
It may be apposite at this stage to mention that in the admission exercises to both the University Colleges of Jos and Ilorin, both of which I had first hand experiences of, to complete the portion allocated to catchment areas(North) we had to admit, start from below, that is, from the lowest per cent marks. This is why I was not surprised to hear that in this year’s admission into the country’s Unity Schools, cut off points were as follows, courtesy a trending Whatsapp chat.
Anambra : 139, Rivers: 130
Katsina :14, Lagos:150
Kwara:144, Kano :18
Forget, meanwhile, that appointments or recruitments into federal government jobs and agencies, respectively, are the exact opposite of the above with North always having the lion share of everything, the down side really is that in any Northern village, town or city today, there are hundreds, if not thousands of literal lay abouts, almajiris, in particular, not only waiting but, actually, praying to be recruited into any of these murderous gangs presently tormenting the country but especially the North where, as you read this, nine year old kids are being wired with bombs to go and effect maximum killings.
Equally as you read this, one or two conferences are ongoing hearing how many police, /army or air force emergency teams are being set up to confront the bandits. But truth be told, how many of these helpless people will you kill and how effective would that method be, in reality, when for every one bandit or Boko Haram killed, twenty are waiting, pleading to be recruited to be able to feed, at all?
This means that the challenges are rather intractable and it is exactly why leaders and the security forces must now think out of the box and come up with fresh paradigms to confront a problem that has metastasized to an extent that you cannot now say any part of Nigeria is safe.
For instance, we have now learnt that the miners banned from Zamfara had relocated to Osun state in search of gold; most parts of Yoruba land, as we would show below, have been infiltrated by filthy looking Fulani herdsmen who translate into kidnappers once they have sold off their herds, communicating, with top grade handsets with their well heeled controllers located outside the region.
In resolving this horrendous menace which is fast spreading to Yoruba land, and instead of attending to which the El Rufais of Arewa land, are Afghanising, looking for godfathers in faraway Yoruba land, it is with all emphasis at my disposal, that I endorse the following steps, recently suggested as solutions. As encapsulated in a statement signed on behalf of the Yoruba Koya Leadership and Training Foundation by the duo of the group’s Convener, Otunba Deji Osibogun and a Trustee, Senator Tokunbo Ogunbanjo a “wake up call” has gone to all Governors and Governors-elect in South West Geopolitical Zone , urging them to give the region’s security maximum consideration. They are to take actions aimed at safeguarding their people as posterity would never forgive any of them who look askance when Yoruba land is being run aground, surrounded..
According to the group, Yoruba Land has been encircled by external criminals masquerading as herdsmen and they are mostly from Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto and some West African Countries, who are being dropped, daily in Yoruba Land, by Heavy Duty Trucks. They are to be found inside forests in Oke-Ogun axis of Oyo State; Ido/Osi, Ikole, Oye, Irepodun/Ifelodun, Ijero and Efon-Alaaye areas of Ekiti State; Obafemi Owode, Remo and Ayetoro-Imeko in Ogun State; Ife/Ijesha / Iwaraja in Osun state and Akoko-Owo-Akure land in Ondo state, pretending to be herdsmen who rear cows during the day but are, in reality, kidnappers and armed robbers.
Most of the freed kidnapped victims, when interrogated by this group’s Security and Intelligence Team have confirmed that their abductors are mostly Fulani herdsmen, some of whom are non-Nigerians. “Consequently, they continued: we call on all Governors in Yoruba Land, including the incoming ones, to as a matter of urgency, set machinery in motion to flush out these criminals.
“To start with, all heavy duty trucks, and trailers, coming into Yoruba Land should be thoroughly searched at border towns. All herdsmen in Yoruba Land must be duly registered and put on jacket/uniform whenever, and wherever, they are located.. According to the group, these people are now penetrating into Lagos State under the guise of being okada riders, whereas, they are advance teams, digging for information to be delivered to their compatriots for operations.
“We therefore suggest that a Law be enacted to ensure that all Okada riders operating in Lagos State should be registered, at designated centres across the state, with their Bank Verification Numbers taken. Jackets with registration numbers must be issued to them after meeting all requirements and payment of registration fees. Anyone caught riding commercial motorcycles without uniform should be arrested and charged to court in accordance with the appropriate laws,” the group said.
The group further appeals to all Landlords and Community Development Associations (CDAs) to thoroughly fulfil all tenets of Know Your Customers (KYC) before engaging Security Guards so as not to live with enemies within.
The group is saying, by all these: Orisa bo le gbe mi, fi mi si le bo se ba mi meaning we will help ourselves if the federal government will not..
However, I am at a complete loss when everybody thinks President Buhari is the only man to tackle and solve these problems in the North. As already mentioned, these problems are a century old, if not more, and every leadership cadre in that part of the country is vicariously liable for its increasing Somalisation but, more especially the elected governors. Unfortunately rather than massively invest in education and agriculture, and passionately invest in human capital development, what we see at the end of their tenure , are most of them being hauled before courts by the EFCC to account for billions of naira they have allegedly stolen. And these are people who don’t miss a year’s hadj to Mecca or pilgrimage to Jerusalem, thinking they can mock God.
I have wondered to no end as to when Northern leaders would show remorse in the North being a massive drain on a country to which they contribute the least since, by neglecting the care of the people, literally all means of productivity have gone kapüt, the once flourishing textile mills are as dead as dodo; agriculture with its massive irrigation infrastructure has become a life and death affair – no thanks to Boko Haram – and herding which used to characterise peaceful, stick wielding herdsmen, has since been weaponised, whether at home in the North or in the fartherest precincts of Southern Nigeria.
Today, apart from taking care of millions of IDPS , the North is daily gulping billions, in all currences, for equipping, and maintaining, all manner of ‘Puff arders”, the most expansive, to date, being: Air force Operation ‘Diran Mikiya’, with a coordinated air strike and a force package of two attack helicopters, 1000 policemen with counter terrorism unit (CTU), federal special anti-robbery squad (FSARS), anti-bomb (EOD) squad, “Operation Maximum Safety” with 510 police personnel and 40 patrol vehicles”.
More annoying, however, is that there are no clear signs of abatement to the rampaging banditry.
Therefore, true Federalism is the only answer.