By: Abdulrasheed Ibrahim, LL.M,
Notary Public
I have said it somewhere else
that most of the people that aspire for leaderships in this country do not know
how to use of the power to make meaningful and positive impact in the lives of
the people when they eventually get it. There is no doubt that patriotism and
leadership by example have for long gone on flight in this county. According to
Chinua Achebe : “Nigeria has many thoughtful men and women of conscience, a
large number of talented people. Why is it that all these patriots make so
little impact on the life of our nation? Why is corruption, gross inequities,
our noisy vulgarity, our selfishness, our ineptitude seem so much stronger than
the good influences at work in our society? Why do the good among us so
helpless while the worst are full of vile energy?” The simple answer to this is
lack of patriotism and love for the country.
If one may ask, what is
patriotism? According to Achebe, “He is a person who loves his country .He is
not a person who says he loves his country .He is not even a person who shouts
or swears or recites or sings his love of his country .He is one who cares
deeply about the happiness and well -being of his country and all its people.
Patriotism is an emotion of love directed by a critical intelligence. A true
patriot will always demand the highest standards of his country and accept
nothing but the best for and from his people. He will be outspoken in the
condemnation of their short-coming without giving way to superiority, despair
or cynicism”. With what has been happening to us in this country, can it be
said that our leaders from the top to the bottom are truly patriotic and living
up to expectation? What have they been doing to seriously tackle the high rate
insecurity across the country caused by the Boko haram madness, incessant
herdsmen/farmers clashes, kidnapping, banditry and other criminal activities
being perpetrated by the evil and terror gangs across the nation?
The level of havoc being
unleashed on Nigerians by these evil and terror people in different parts of the
country is becoming too disheartening and painful and this calls for an urgent
intervention from the President of the country as the Commander-in-Chief of the
Armed Forces. The criminals are becoming more daring day by day and this
requires immediate action by the President as than merely making of statements
that a particular incident of kidnapping would be the last one contrary to
which were series of such kidnappings thereafter. Mere assertion that the
governors should not be paying ransoms to the kidnappers without more is
equally not enough as there must be serious efforts on the part of the Federal
Government to leash out its military might in smoking out the criminals from
their hideouts for decisive action against them than mere rhetoric. Every word
by the President must be followed by a serious action. The President should be
worried that the North from where he comes has been the major target of these
terrorists. Since the burden of national security lies with him as the Chairman
of National Security Council by virtue of the Third Schedule of the
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a concrete action is expected
from that council. With the act of criminality and inhumanity being perpetrated
by these wicked and evil terrorists, this is the right time for President
Muhammadu Buhari to heed Rodrigo Duterte , the President of Philippines’s words
that : “A leader must be a terror to the few who are evil in order to protect
the lives and well-being of the many who are good”. Until the President
immediately begins to be proactive in dealing with this evil people, most
Nigerian people that voted and entrusted him leadership of this country will
continue to regret reposing their confidence in him. The President must be
concerned about the legacy he wants to leave behind.
The heartless criminals have
turned this country into an animal jungle where they derive pleasure in killing
innocent Nigerian citizens senselessly .It is high time the governments
particularly at the Federal level mobilise all its might and forces to deal
decisively with these criminals as they are making lives very unbearable for
the Nigerians. Enough is enough. Why are some governors negotiating with these
criminals and paying them ransom for their act of criminality rather than
tackling them? The governors must make up their minds and be determined to
confront these terrorists fire for fire. Since the governors may truly not have
personnel and weapons to deal with these evil terrorists, the Federal
Government will need come in to save the situation. Paying ransom (money) to
the criminals will not deter them from the act of criminality rather they will
allow that money to run into their heads and continue to perpetrate the crimes
with the belief that they will get more ransom. Olusegun Adeniyi, a journalist
and columnist in his article titled: “Criminal Cartels on the Loose” published
in the Thisday Newspaper of February 11, 2021 said :
“In October 2019, a former
Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar disclosed that over N3
billion was collected by bandits as ransom from relatives of victims in Zamfara
State alone within a period of eight years. Abubakar who chaired a committee
set up by the current governor , Bello Matawalle to find solutions to banditry
in the state, said the report covered the period from June 2011 to May ,
2019.The money , according to Abubakar, was collected from 3,672 victims whose
relatives paid to secure their freedom . Abubakar said that a total of 4,983
women were widowed, 25,050 children orphaned and 190,340 persons displaced by
banditry over the period in the state.”
This was what happened just in
one state within that period. The data of other states are not included. By
what we have been seen and reading after that the figures of the victims and
the illicit earning in that state alone must have sky rocketed far beyond the
above figures. Are our leaders comfortable with this development? What efforts
are being made by our leaders to stop this madness and atrocities being
perpetrated by these wicked terrorists? Are our leaders reading all these
reports and if they do what are they doing to curb them? If the attitudes of
our leaders still remain the same as Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was once quoted to
have said when talking to some journalists that : “In most cases, I take what
Nigerian Newspapers report with a pinch of salt. In your own case, I take it
with a bag of salt”. A good reader should not be discriminatory when it comes
to reading. He needs to develop the sense and ability to distinguish what is
right and what is wrong so as to believe or disbelieve whatever he reads. If
our leaders are discriminatory in reading, they will not know when a genuine
information eludes them and that may have adverse effect on their role as
leaders.
On often keeps wondering what is
happening to our military might and intelligence in this county? Many innocent
school children are still being held hostage from those of the Chibok girls in
Borno State upto those presently being held in Kaduna State whose poor parents
are being asked by the bandits to pay N500 millions for those children to be
released or be killed. The governor of Kaduna State has said he was not ready
to pay ransom to the criminals. Some other governors that have paid ransom in
the past are now regretting that those criminals have taken them for a ride
that after collecting money from them they have refused to give up their wicked
and evil trade of kidnapping for ransom. But are our military personnel not
aware of the hideouts of these terrorists to trace them? Are they afraid of
confronting them to dare the consequence? I was astonished when I read the
account of Sheikh Ahmad Gumi’s visit to Fulani settlements. According to
Olusegun Adeniyi, in his article titled: “20 Years Later …Same Old Wahala” published
in the Thisday Newspaper of January 28, 2021 in his column:
“Following a risky peace mission
to Fulani settlements along Abuja-Kaduna routes that have become notorious for
banditry and kidnapping, respected Islamic cleric, Dr Ahmad Gumi, has made shocking
revelations. Sharing his experience in Daily Trust Newspaper at the weekend,
the Sheikh said the bandits and kidnappers who carry out the nefarious
activities are mere foot soldiers and the real kingpins live in the cities.
Asked whether he was not afraid for his life engaging such characters, this is
Gumi’s response: ‘I am not afraid of the bandits. I am more afraid of those
people who capitalize and exploit them. When we asked some of the bandits why
they kidnap people ,they said they don’t know the rich people, they don’t go to
towns but there are people in the cities who ask them to attack certain rich
people .So , the bandits are only agents. When the ransom is paid, it belongs
to those people in town, the bandits are only paid operational fee. If you see
them, they are tattered. One of the commanders was wearing slippers and you
just can’t see any sign of the millions on them. So those (the sponsors) are
people I fear because we live in the city with them and because they fear that
we are trying to break their chain or hold on their agents The people I fear
are those that are capitalizing on the weakness of the Fulani to indoctrinate
them with their own ideology’ ”
In a country where leaders are
concerned about the security of their people, the security agencies need not be
told before doing the necessary things. From the above revelations, does it not
look like those behind these atrocities are known people in the town? Can’t the
security agencies go after them for proper investigation and arrest? In the
region where the level of literacy or education is nothing to write home about,
wicked and heartless terrorists are going about kidnapping innocent school
children for ransom. Is this senseless act not discouraging sending children to
schools? This is more the reasons why the President must be seriously concerned
about the security situation in the country and devise ways to stop all these
criminal madness.. If the bandits and kidnappers are well educated and know
what is lawful and unlawful, they will not allow themselves to be exploited by
those from the cities for their selfish end. If they know the gravity and
penalty of such crimes under the law, they will think twice before allowing
themselves to be used for such illegality.
These criminal elements are now
a big threat to this country and until they are dealt with decisively we may
not know peace for a very long time. Since these wicked and heartless people
have disallowed us to live in peace, we must devise ways to make them restless
as we can no longer afford to be at the mercy of the terrorists. If this
exercise requires mass recruitment of good Nigerians into the security forces
or sending our military personnel for sound and tactical training outside
country or even buy sophisticated weapons to confront the terrorists, the
Federal government must be prepared to do all these. If the US security forces
could eventually bring down Osama Bin Laden, then our security forces should do
more to bring down all the terrorists disturbing our peace here. El-Rufai was
right when he said:”We need the combination of air power, and we need troops on
the ground augment by local expertise and knowledge. We need just one , two
,three months operation to just try to kill all the bandits. It’s the only way
to stop this. So long as these bandits are being paid, it’ll remain a business.
So the only option that we have is to ensure that we kill them all.”
On the incessant
farmers/herdsmen clashes, I think our leaders need to call a spade a spade and
do the right things. In reality the open grazing of cattle should be considered
as out-dated and ranching system be embraced and encouraged. Both genuine
farmers and herdsmen in the country should be encouraged to embrace modern
technology in the practise of mechanized farming and animal husbandry. The
legislators must enact enabling laws to regulate such practice with appropriate
penalty and sanction stipulated for defaulters of the law.Nobody must be above
the law. I do not buy into the argument of some people that agricultural
practice in any form are private businesses which the government must not be
involved in.Such contention to me are baseless as it was the neglect and
abandonment of agriculture in the large scale that has contributed
significantly to the high rate of poverty in this country for a very long time.
During the First Republic when there were three major regions of Eastern
Region, Northern Region and Western Region, they survived mainly and sustained
their economics basically on agriculture produces with which they developed
their respective regions when there was no crude oil which the country now
mainly rely on at the expense of the agricultural potential this nation is
blessed with.
One of the great damages the
terrorists has done to the agricultural potential of this country is that with
their incessant and senseless attacks they have killed and displaced many
farmers from their farmland .A glaring example of this was heartless killing of
rice farmers in cold blood in Borno State and other parts of the country. Our
leaders should be seriously worried about this ugly development as well as on
the concern raised by the European Union on food insecurity in Nigeria in their
recent statements where they said that “ over nine million citizens requiring
urgent food assistance” and that:
“Because of the recent increase
of violence in Northeast Nigeria, hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people
will be left without assistance in an area where humanitarian assistance was
already struggling to reach all those in need.”
Are these not enough to gear up
our leaders particularly the President into serious action against the
terrorists and evil people in our midst? Since those heartless terrorists and
criminal have decided to be deadly in inflicting pain and sorrow on the good
Nigerian people , every possible effort must be mobilised to wipe out these
devilish terrorists from this country. Whenever necessary Nigerians should make
information available to the security agents on how to trace and wipe out these
terrorists disturbing out peaceful existence.The ball is now in the court of
the President as the Commander-in- Chief to act quickly against the terrorists
for the sake of prosperity.
NOTE: Anyone is at liberty to
disagree with my above submissions as I will surely appreciate a balanced, fair
and objective rebuttal.
08055476823, 08164683735: [email protected]
22th April 2021