We have just gone through the yearly ritual of 1st October. As is usually the case, our leaders spoke like patriots. They went back in time to remind us of how the journey began. They romanticized our past. They talked about the Nigeria of our dreams. They regaled us with what the founding fathers of the country wanted the entity to be. They still remember with a bit of nostalgia what the mood was some 61 years ago.
But after so long a journey, how has the country fared? The answer is familiar to all of us. Ours is a case of lost opportunities and of misplaced priorities. Nigeria is a mismanaged enterprise. All that successive administrations have been doing is to correct the observed ills. But each has ended up compounding our woes. The country seems to be in a state of infinite regress. Our leaders are fully aware of this bad situation. Regardless of that, they are hopeful, actually or pretentiously, that we will, someday, arrive at the Promised Land.
President Muhammadu Buhari was much more forthright in his encapsulation of the Nigerian condition in his 1st October speech. He expressed worry about the unfortunate turn of events in the area of security. He admitted that the last 18 months have been the most trying in the history of the country since the end of the Civil War. The President’s emphasis in this regard rested on secessionist agitators and their alleged sponsors. He said efforts are being made to expose those behind the agitations. The President, for emphasis, told Nigerians again that the unity of the country is not negotiable. He also told them that Nigeria is indivisible. These are familiar refrains. We hear them on a very regular basis. They are usually the punchline of presidential addresses.
But beyond the familiar rhetoric, how does Buhari’s Nigeria become workable? The President needs to confront this question frontally. As the President of the country, Buhari is fully aware of what the problems are. The challenge he alluded to in his Independence Day broadcast borders on insecurity. And this is one blight that has crippled his presidency. It is reassuring that the President recognizes this as the blot that has taken the shine off his administration. This being the case, the expectation is that he should take decisive steps in ensuring that this cankerworm is stamped out.
Regrettably, he has not. Politics appears to have crept into a matter that should have been handled dispassionately. Perhaps one major reason which has hampered whatever effort that is being made to tame the monster of insecurity is selective application of the rules that govern the public space. Not too long ago, the Buhari presidency went to war in southeast Nigeria over the activities of ‘unknown gunmen’. The entire East was fully militarized. The situation has not changed much even till today. To underline his disgust for what was going on in the East then, Buhari even descended from his presidential heights to threaten secessionist agitators from the region with fire and brimstone.
Given Buhari’s tough posturing in the East, it was thought that he would pour out the same venom in his denunciation of banditry in northern Nigeria. But rather than do that, the President seems to be pampering the band of terrorists that is holding northern Nigeria by the jugular. We are aware of how banditry has reduced northern Nigeria, particularly the North-West, to a den of blood and sorrow. The region is a place where people, particularly schoolchildren, are randomly kidnapped and taken hostage. Many have died in the process. Those who survive can only be released when huge sums of money are paid to the abductors as ransom. Abduction has become a daily fare in northern Nigeria. It is now the most thriving industry in the region. But the big regret in all this is that government appears to be paying lip service to the solutions required to stamp out the cankerworm. That is why we have never heard that government went for the bandits. Bandits have been operating as if they descended from the skies. Government has been behaving as if the bandits are spirits that cannot be traced or tracked.
Significantly, Sheikh Abubakar Gumi has told us that government knows where the bandits are. The fact of the matter is that government is treating them with kid gloves. It is even being suggested in some quarters that bandits should be granted amnesty and be reintegrated into society. Suggestions such as this have not helped the situation. Regardless of the various and varied opinions that have pervaded the vexed issue of banditry, the fact remains that government is playing politics with the matter. That is why it has refused to declare daredevil gunmen that have crippled the North as terrorists.
It is in the face of this pussyfooting that the National Assembly has decided to weigh into the matter. Last week, both chambers of the national legislature had cause to reflect a lot deeper on the security crisis that the country faces. The Senate took the lead in this regard when it asked Mr. President to declare the bandits ravaging the North as terrorists. The House of Representatives, 24 hours later, followed suit. Their arguments for the designation of banditry as terrorism are basically the same. According to the legislators, such a measure will underline the determination of the government to combat the growing wave of criminalities and murders associated with the activities of bandits. They held that a prohibition order banning banditry can be activated using the instrumentality of the Terrorism Prevention Act, 2011 (As Amended). Such an order, they believe, will officially bring the activities of bandits and their sponsors within the purview of the Terrorism Prevention Act and make it possible for persons associated with banditry to be legally prosecuted and punished in line with the provisions of the law. The legislators had much more to say on this. But all said, their argument is watertight, almost unassailable.
With this offering, the National Assembly has rescued the President from inertia. What he needs to do now is to take advantage of the resolution of the national legislature in this matter.
In case the President does not know, banditry is the biggest security threat that the country faces today. People have lost their basic freedoms in territories where bandits have a foothold. The most enduring way to remedy the situation is to isolate these anti-social elements from the rest of the society by designating them as terrorists. That way, the law, as our lawmakers have reasoned, will properly isolate and segment them and deal with them appropriately.