It is not yet doomsday in Nigeria. There is still some chance to rescue us from ourselves, even if the buffeting winds of killings and maimings and outright erasure of human settlements from the surface of the earth have served adequate notice that we are pushing our luck.
I have no partisan agenda other than the desire to contribute ideas towards our return to normalcy. I make this declaration knowing that looking out for the common good is viewed with suspicion by those who believe that nothing goes for nothing. In the face of unprecedented challenges, I stand solidly with Nigeria. We shall survive the current storm.
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It didn’t start today. Our country began crumbling since 1966 when soldiers shot their way to power. We fought a civil war in which about three million people died. Decades later, the military gifted us the American presidential system in place of the parliamentary constitution they had overthrown. That zero-some constitution has not worked for us. It never will.
Catalogue of Terror
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Since the end of the Nigerian civil war, no other time in our recent history compares to our current experience in terms of arson, killings, destruction of farms, ethnic hate and suspicion, rumbles of secession, carving out of evil fiefdoms and reduction of stable families to beggars in IDP camps.
Oh, how I miss the old secure Nigeria where you could drive from Yenagoa to Sokoto, Aba to Maiduguri, Jos to Akure or Lagos to Kano. We are all hemmed in now. We need help!
We didn’t need to wait for the execution of Brig-General Musa Uba by ISWAP terrorists before realising that our security agencies, as presently constituted, cannot deliver peace nationwide any time soon. There is no shame in admitting that we cannot cope anymore, as the litany of terror shows.
When, on the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 schoolgirls in the Government Secondary School, Chibok, aged between 16 and 18, were kidnapped by Boko Haram, we said, “Never Again!” We mounted a worldwide advocacy, “Bring Back Our Girls.” Eminent personalities, including Michelle Obama, joined in the global advocacy.
Barely four years later, on 19 February, 2018, Boko Haram kidnapped 110 girls from the Government Girls Science Technical College (GGSTC) in Dapchi, Yobe State. Although most of the students were released by their abductors on 21 March, 2018, 14-year-old Leah Sharibu (a Christian girl who refused to be converted to Islam) was denied freedom and is still in captivity.
On 11 December, 2020, bandits abducted 303 male students of Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State and released them one week later. As usual the government denied paying any ransom. On December 19, 2020, some gunmen abducted more than 80 Islamic school students in the same Katsina State but reportedly released them when the police rose to the occasion.
On 17 February, 2021, bandits abducted 41 persons comprising students, teachers, and their family members from the Government Science College Kagara in Niger State. 27 students were among the abductees. On February 26, 2021, 317 female students were abducted from Government Girls Science Secondary School, Jangebe, Zamfara State.
On 11 March, 2021, gunmen attacked the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Igabi LGA, Kaduna State, and kidnapped 39 students — 23 male and 16 female. On 5 April, 2021, the government of Kaduna State announced that five of the 39 people abducted from Afaka had been released. On 8 April, 2021, the state further disclosed that an additional five students had been released. On May 5, 2021, the government announced that the remaining 29 students had been released.
On 20 April, 2021, at least 20 students and two staff were kidnapped by bandits in Greenfield University, Kasarami village, Chikun LGA, Kaduna State. The kidnappers demanded an N800 million ransom but eventually received a negotiated sum of N150 million and eight brand new motorcycles after killing three of the students.
On 30 May, 2021, an armed gang abducted about 100 pupils from an Islamic school in Niger State but later sent back those considered “too small”— between ages four and 12. On Thursday, June 17, 2021, a mass of heavily armed bandits struck at Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri, Kebbi State and reportedly took their time to select the girls (students) they took away. According to reports, the criminals killed a police officer and kidnapped at least 80 students and five teachers from the school.
Nigerians had some respite until last week, on 17 November, when 24 schoolgirls were kidnapped by bandits during an early Monday morning attack on Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, in Kebbi State. The school’s vice principal, Hassan Yakubu Makuku, was killed, while two students managed to escape. Then a spate of abductions swept through Eruku and Edu in Kwara State, Gwoza in Borno State, Sabon Birni in Sokoto State, and Agwara in Niger State, where about 315 students and staff were kidnapped from St Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary School.
The ongoing escalation of attacks on schools and communities shows that there’s a script being acted out. This is a time to rally behind the flag.
‘View’ Appeals To Tinubu
A coalition of prominent Northern women, operating under the banner of Voices for Inclusion and Equity for Women (VIEW) has made a passionate appeal to President Tinubu: “No nation can claim to value its future while abandoning its daughters to violence. The girls of Maga must be located, rescued and reunited with their families without delay….”
With the recent insulting ‘guns-a-blazing’ threat by US President Donald Trump to intervene in Nigeria’s security problems if the Nigerian government was deemed incapable of doing the job, there is a new sense of urgency palpable in government circles. Now we have no choice but to restore our country back to normalcy if we don’t want outsiders to do it for us. A government that cannot protect its people is not a government.
The regrettable death of Brig-Gen Musa Uba is more than a wake-up call. There are enemies within. The President needs to order an investigation into the allegations made by Gen. Alli-Keffi in his petition already sent to the president. He claims that, “The moment we arrested some of these individuals and started exposing the financial pipelines of terror, the backlash began,” contending that powerful interests within and outside the government are saboteurs. Mr President, please let’s dig!
We need to step up with technological surveillance and some of the latest hardware. We need help from friendly countries to train additional recruits into the armed forces while carrying on the war at the same time. All so-called ‘repentant terrorists’ allegedly absorbed into the armed forces should be weeded out immediately. The government needs to withdraw all policemen and other security officers attached to so-called VIPs and deploy them to regular duties. We shouldn’t rule out ‘guns-for-hire’ (PMCs).
Emergency
Mr President, please declare a national emergency and constitute retired military/security officers below 70 into a think tank. Put all brains to the task. Let’s pull together all our resources to fight this monster before it breaks us.
Also, let’s commence the process of reimagining and reinventing Nigeria. How about restructuring the political setup back to where we were coming from—the parliamentary system? The existing six zones will naturally become semi-autonomous regions like the ones we had before this current winner-takes-all presidential system, which has proven to be strife-ridden and pestilential!
Nigerians did much better under the parliamentary system negotiated at Independence. We should be glad to return to it without further delay.
Wole Olaoye is a Public Relations consultant and veteran journalist. He can be reached on [email protected], Twitter: @wole_olaoye; Instagram: woleola2021
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