On Christmas Eve, I had drifted up the West Coast from Lagos to Togo, driven by a curiosity to “feel” how Christmas is celebrated in the 7.6 million people West African country on the Gulf of Guinea.
I sauntered into Hotel Ibis on the ever-busy Avenue du General de Gaulle in Lome, the country’s capital city. Luck connected me to a fellow who would later become a friend and at the end of an hour interaction with Fodjour Commie, a polyglot Beninese businessman, I was more than convinced that Nigeria is the most “unprotected” country on earth.
Commie, who had a vast knowledge of the West Africa stretch, gave me an insight into some goings-on across the region’s borders. “Bros, anything can enter Nigeria” was his submission.
I sauntered into Hotel Ibis on the ever-busy Avenue du General de Gaulle in Lome, the country’s capital city. Luck connected me to a fellow who would later become a friend and at the end of an hour interaction with Fodjour Commie, a polyglot Beninese businessman, I was more than convinced that Nigeria is the most “unprotected” country on earth.
Commie, who had a vast knowledge of the West Africa stretch, gave me an insight into some goings-on across the region’s borders. “Bros, anything can enter Nigeria” was his submission.
Decades of war and anarchy in troubled parts of the world have put incredibly lethal weapons in the hands of a motley gang of ambitious warlords who are actively challenging constituted authorities across countries. Nigeria is a fair receiver of these dangerous weapons that are alarmingly in the custody of bandits, Boko Haram, kidnappers and killer herdsmen. That is the reason the most populous Black nation on earth is currently under siege and its people, since the past few months, living with a siege mentality.
Anarchy everywhere, brewed by a killing spree. Herdsmen are killing with glee. Kidnapping, now a high-incident crime, and kidnappers are getting away scot-free. Robbers operate unchallenged. And there is still the occasional carnage by the Boko Haram insurgents. The national insecurity situation is at rock bottom, to say the least. More than half of the 774 council areas across the federation are under various forms of undeclared emergency, resulting in the deployment of military and allied security forces on diverse security duties into those areas.
Events as common as naming ceremonies are heavily secured because nobody knows when and where the next strike would occur. In many instances, the military had to go into active combat with air support in a bid to secure strategic national assets and disperse troublemakers. Some of these engagements remain ongoing.
Ironically, the enemy is not an overambitious or overpowering external adversary. There is really no clear-cut dichotomy between the enemy and the rest of us. As Walt Kelly says: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Militants, robbers, kidnappers, insurgents, badoo ritualist and club-wielding zealots of assorted faiths, they are all regular folks. Everybody is angry with everybody and the swords of wrath are turned inwards.
To combat the menace of this undeclared national emergency, the military is complemented by a variety of official paramilitary outfits: the police, State Security Services, and Civil Defence Corps etc. In addition are officially approved vigilante forces at state and local government levels, including the now recognised Civilian JTF.
Despite this security armada, nothing has changed. No place is secured and nobody is safe. In the past few weeks, marauding herdsmen have become the most toxic issue in the country drawing bile from all strata.
Nigerians are no longer kidding themselves this aberration can be wished away. For crying out loud, the Fulani herdsmen had proven themselves to be the new death squads in town.
By the time help got to the unsuspecting villagers in Guma and Logo local government areas of Benue State on Tuesday, January 2, 2018, over 50 people had been killed in cold blood by attacking herdsmen. The assault on Logo began at about 10 a.m. on New Year day.
The attacker shot sporadically at worshippers coming out of the church. The killings continued the next day, prompting a nationwide anxiety. People were killed and houses razed. Some of those killed had their throats slit, eyes and private organs removed, butchered like animals. The gory pictures evoked a national outcry.
What prompted the apocalypse? Governor Sam Ortom had in November 2017, signed the Anti-Open Grazing and Anti-Kidnapping, Abduction, Cultism and Terrorism Bills into law with the aim to end the incessant clashes between herdsmen and farmers in Benue. How wrong he was! The Benue landscape, at present, wears the semblance of a state at war.
A distraught Governor Ortom had openly wept profusely at the scene of the attacks and had called on President Buhari to protect his people from the hands of the bloodthirsty herdsmen.
This siege on the nation is surprisingly coming at a time when the country should feel most secure under Buhari, who is easily the most feared among the ageing breed of ex-military leaders, who incidentally rode into democratic office on the of security. The situation speaks volume of leadership failure, failure of intelligence gathering and a failure of the security apparatus of the state.
That is why the affront to the populace by non-state contenders now intensifies. Their boldness is shown in their routine encroachment into areas that used to be the exclusive preserve of governments. Imagine, kidnappers now wear uniforms, army fatigues. Fulani herdsmen, once synonymous with wooden staff, are now Ak-47-toting grim reapers.
Yet we cannot not resign and allow impunity to take over the land. At a time things were getting out of hand in Ekiti State, Governor Ayodele Fayose challenged the herdsmen menace with all the administrative machinery at his disposal.
He demonstrated, in law and in action, that Ekiti remains an out-of-bounds zone for free-ranging cattle rearers. Herdsmen signed an undertaking to obey the anti-grazing law. Within months, Ekitiland regained its normalcy.
The road to the restoration of national security and order will involve difficult choices or even draconian measures. There is hardly a reason to wait for a sluggish commander-in-chief to call his Fulani kin to order. It is now every governor’s call. After all, a governor is the chief security officer of his state. Governors of beleaguered states should take a close look at the Fayose Model.
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