When killers kill without consequence, they kill more

At 2.30 pm on Saturday, May 5, in Gwaska village in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area, when most men were still in their farms, a group of ‘bandits’ rode into town on motorcycles and went on a killing spree. By the time they were done with their evil agenda, over 45 people, including men and women were dead, killed in cold blood on a hot Saturday afternoon. They were not only killed but their houses were also burnt. It looked like the agenda was to wipe out the community.

Austin Awar, the Police Commissioner in Kaduna state has since confirmed the incident and the number of causalities. He claims that the police have since deployed about 150 policemen to protect the village from further attacks with a plan to further deploy 200 more officers at a later date. As they say in local parlance, the police are ‘offering medicine after death.’

The question is where was the police when these villagers were being killed on a hot Saturday afternoon? The bandits riding on motorcycles must have come from a location. How come these so called bandits can drive so freely with arms and ammunition and kill with such impunity without any counter action from the security agencies?

These questions become even more relevant because this is not the first time that Birnin Gwari has been attacked. The community has experienced several attacks in the last few months, yet apparently the police did not deem it fit to have policemen stationed in the community to deter future attacks. This is an obvious failure in the security apparatus in the state.

Sadly, this apparent failure in the security apparatus in the Kaduna state has become the norm across the country, resulting in the unnecessary and random killings of Nigerians almost on a daily basis. From January to date, it is ‘estimated’ that about a 1,000 Nigerians have been killed in random attacks across the country.  We are using ‘estimated’ here because there is no official agency taking record of Nigerians being killed daily by these so called ‘bandits.’

There is an apparent massive failure in the security architecture in the country.

Just last week, a suicide bomber walked into a mosque in Mubi, Adamawa state and detonated his deadly cargo, killing over 26 people instantly. As people fled from the first bomb blast, another suicide bomber detonated his explosives. At the end of both attacks, more than 86 people were dead. We do not want to talk of the almost daily killings taking place Taraba, Zamfara, Benue, Plateau and other states across the country. Nigeria, sadly has become a killing field, where people wake up to the news of mass deaths and they hardly flinch because it happened yesterday too.

While mass killings have become common, arrests are scarce. The killers are killing more and more people because there is no consequence for their action. Nigerians had high hopes when President Buhari was elected in 2015, that the then deteriorating security situation in the country would come to an end, considering his military background. Sadly, the security situation has actually gotten worse. Even more worrisome is the fact that the president has not offered any clear strategy to put an end to the killings other than the usual platitudes that come with these killings.

President Buhari has retained the heads of his security agencies despite the rapid deterioration in security across the country. Unless the president knows something that we do not know, there is no better rating of the performance of the heads of security agencies than their ability to protect lives and properties of citizens. Going by the ongoing killings across the country, the president and the heads of security agencies have failed. What is the purpose of a government if it cannot protect its own people from unlawful killings?

The killings have continued because there have been no consequences. The perpetrators of the killings have continued because no one is arresting them. Those who should arrest them have not done so because no one is holding them to account for not doing their jobs. The buck stops at President Buhari’s desk.

“How can a responsible government allow hits people to be killed in this way?” asked President Buhari back in 2013 while criticising former president Goodluck Jonathan over attacks by Boko Haram. He had even suggested that the then president Jonathan should resign for a more competent leader to handle the security situation if he could not handle the situation. Five years after, perhaps it is time President Buhari take a look into the mirror and heed his own advice.