It is becoming a wild, wild North

On May 13, a group of ‘armed bandits’ said to number about 80 walked into the town of Maganda village along the Birnin-Gwari – Funtua‎ road and abducted the three housewives of a man in the community. One of the women was later sent back with a ransom note.

A few hours after this attack, six persons were abducted again on the Birnin-Gwari-Kaduna Highway. This time, the armed bandits opened fire on a commercial vehicle which was fully loaded with passengers. Unfortunately, one passenger died in the attack. The passengers that survived were walked into the bush and captivity by their abductors.

Earlier on Sunday, May 20, there was media reports of how 87 people were kidnapped on the Birnin-Gwari to Kaduna Highway. This time, an unnamed official of the Nigeria Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) told the media of how armed bandits intercepted up to 15 commercial vehicles and trucks and started picking passengers based on dressing and appearance and walking them into the bush as captives. Four of the passengers in different vehicles were not so lucky as they were killed by the bandits.

In the last few weeks, the tales coming out of Birnin Gwari has become quite scary. Sadly, these attacks are not just restricted to Birnin-Gwari. It is repeating itself in Zamfara and Taraba where bandits seem to be exercising an unrestricted freedom to roam and kill at will.

The media reported on March 30 of how armed bandits attacked Bawan Daji village in Anka local government area of Zamfara state and killed 32 people in cold blood. Interestingly, the bandits are said to have warned that they were coming to attack the village.  And when the villagers gathered for a meeting to discuss the threat, they came and killed only the men that were at the meeting and those who tried to escape.

A few weeks after the initial attack, the bandits struck again. This time the target was Kabaro and Danmani villages in Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State. This time a gang of bandits were said to have attacked the village after some of their members were arrested. They came back in full force to attack the village and by the time they left, 30 people have been killed in cold blood.

It has been a similar sad tale of bloodshed in Taraba as roaming bandits in the area have left hundreds of people dead in the last one year. Sadly, most of these attacks have continued even when security officials have been deployed on ground to stop the attacks from happening. Clearly, the police have shown that it has no capacity to deal with these issues. Consequently, there has been an unhealthy dependence on the army to deal with the rising insecurity in the North.

But the army is looking increasingly stretched. The same army which is dealing with the threat posed by Boko Haram in the North East is now finding itself having to deal with bandit attacks in the North West and Herdsmen attacks in the North Central. The fact that the deployment of the army is doing little to stop these repetitive attacks shows how stretched they already are. No country’s army should be so involved in internal operations that its capacity to face external threat is now in question. The army is now deployed in 34 of the country 36 states.

But of more concern is the rapid deterioration in the security situation in the North. The armed bandit situation is fast becoming a bigger issue than Boko Haram. What initially started as cattle rustling has developed fully into criminal gang situation where armed gangs are able to move freely across vast stretches of territory to kill and maim without restraint. It has become the wild, wild North.

It is true that the army has made efforts to stop the killings but it is obviously not enough because people are still being kidnapped, killed and maimed on daily basis. Thousands of people are also being displaced and their means of livelihood are being destroyed. Many rural communities are being deserted due to these attacks. A region with an already high poverty rate and where agriculture and agriculture related activities are the main stay of the economy, is having its economy destroyed by these attacks.

The long term impact of the current attacks on the economy of the North is significant. Displaced children cannot go to school or will have their education negatively impacted as they try to settle down in new communities. An area that is already educationally disadvantaged should not have its social economic environment further disrupted like the way it is being currently done.

It must be stated that the government has failed woefully in protecting lives and properties of Nigerians in these areas. Those who have unnecessarily died in the ongoing violence deserved every protection from the government but the government failed them. Sadly, President Buhari and his security team have continued to act as if the life of the people it was elected to protect does not matter.

The president looks more passionate about his second term ambitions than express rage and provide a clear strategy to tackle the increasingly precarious security challenge in the North. On the same day mass burial was going in Benue State for two priests and 15 lay men killed by herdsmen, Buhari was receiving in audience the Buhari supporters group, who came to express their support for his second term ambitions.  Even if he was not going to be at such a solemn occasion, that reminds the nation of the horrible killings going on in the land, he should not be using that day to campaign for a second term.

In Buhari’s own words, the country must first be secured before there can be a government. Right now he is failing in his primary role of securing the country.