Joel Nwokeoma
“After realising that the government was not ready to stop the killing of our people by these two groups, we decided to pay back with reprisals. From that day, we decided to kill at least 50 people whenever one of us was killed”
–Hassan Dantawaye, commander of bandits in Zamfara State, The PUNCH, August 17, 2019.
Certain things happen in Nigeria that will make any sane person to shudder with incredulity. Sadly, they happen in such a disturbing rapidity that makes the country look like one huge Theatre of the absurd. Take the case of what is unfolding before our very eyes in much of the North-West of the country especially in Katsina State, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, that had for months been hobbled by a reign of murderous banditry leading to the death of an incalculable number of people.
Governor Aminu Masari, who doubles, nominally though, as the Chief Security Officer of the state, obviously weighed down by helplessness in the face of the bandits’ relentless attacks and killings, walked into a scheduled meeting, earlier this month, at Dankolo village in the Sabuwa Local Government Area of the state to practically beg bandits drawn from Sabuwa and Dandume to stop their reign of terror. As this newspaper, in its September 5, 2019 edition, reported, the bandits looked the governor in the face and told him, without mincing words, that “they would not accept any dialogue unless their colleagues in prison were released.”
One of the bandits, said to be Idris Yayande, voiced his colleagues’ audacious demand thus: “We have some complaints. Our biggest complaint is that some of our members were arrested and detained in different prisons across the state. Government should release them before any dialogue.”
At this time, the governor was confronted by the manifest powerlessness of his governmental power as the chief security officer of a subnational government in a failing sovereign state, incapable of securing its space from violent non-state actors. In his response, the report said, Masari “assured the bandits that the state government would secure the release of their members in detention as part of efforts to restore peace and normalcy in the state.” If this move by the governor is not a violation of Section 14 (2b) of 1999 Constitution as amended, which states that “the welfare and security of the citizens shall be the primary purpose of the government,” I don’t know what else is.
Strikingly, what was said was not as depressing as the photo that was released by the governor’s media aides the next day and published in the media. The picture showed a grinning governor standing side by side a self-confessed “commander” of the bandits clutching an AK-47 beside a senior army officer in a photo session! Instead of deploying the full weight of the state against those known to have admittedly killed lives and destroyed property of people, the government adopted a dysfunctional strategy of negotiating and begging them to “accept dialogue” in order to “restore normalcy” in the state. Sadly, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, whose agency is mandated to rid the country of acts of criminality and banditry, justified the absurdity by saying, in the heat of criticisms last week, that “such negotiations will bring peace”, equating it with the amnesty the Federal Government granted agitating militants in the Niger Delta. He has yet to answer the poser of what the bandits are agitating for that led to their free killings in the region given that we all know what led to the Niger Delta agitation.
Before now, however, this time in neighbouring Zamfara State, a certain Hassan Dantawaye, mentioned in the opening quote above, who was described as the “commander” of the bandits in the state, shocked Nigerians with the revelation that his murderous gang took a decision to “kill at least 50 people when ONE of us was killed.” The bandits, who are Fulani herdsmen, the newspaper reported, “had been engaged in killing, kidnapping and other crimes, which they blamed on cattle rustling and harassment by security agencies and local vigilance group.” These atrocities are known to a helpless and overwhelmed Nigerian state. But instead of bringing the perpetrators to book, the governors went begging and negotiating with them to stop. Dantawaye made this disclosure known in an interview granted this newspaper on August 17, 2019.
Earlier on March 19, this newspaper had reported, quoting the AFP, that, “Motorcycle-riding gunmen attacked Kware village in Shinkafi district on Sunday night, opening fire on residents and burning homes.” At the end of the murderous attack, a resident, Alu Wadatau, told newsmen that, “We recovered 34 bodies after the attack and many more residents have not been accounted for.”
Three days earlier, the media reported that “bandits killed 32 vigilance group members in Kware, at a checkpoint set up by locals.” Incidentally, the murdered vigilance group members formed part of a militia force the villagers resorted to, in the absence of thoroughly underwhelming security agencies, to provide security for traders in the area, “with besieged communities taking security into their own hands”.
As if that was not bizarre enough, the Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, announced days ago that he had pardoned and released 13 bandits who had been terrorising parts of the state, noting that, “we entered into an understanding with them to end their activities”. As he put it, “We have expended a lot of resources using military solutions but at the same time we have decided to go into dialogue. And we found out that the dialogue we engaged in is beginning to yield positive results in some parts of the state.”
It is not possible that the begging of, and negotiations with, bandits in the states mentioned above were done without the knowledge and approval of the President. Ironically, while the government relishes romancing known killers and bandits, it is at the same time hounding and terrorising harmless citizens whose only sin is exercising their democratic right to protest ad dissent. A dismayed Femi Falana, SAN, expressed it thus last week: “…the harassment of law-abiding citizens cannot be tolerated under a regime that is busy negotiating with bandits and terrorists, bribing them with public funds and granting them amnesty.” Falana’s comment was against the backdrop of government’s invasion of the premises of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights where a pro-Sowore protest was scheduled to take place on Wednesday, and a clampdown on SaharaReporters, the online publication owned by Omoyele Sowore, the candidate of the African Action Congress in the 2019 presidential election. Sowore was arrested and detained by the Department of State Services in August on allegations of “insulting the President” and threatening the public peace with his planned nationwide #RevolutionNow protest.
Contrary to the order of the Federal High Court that Sowore be detained for 45 days only, it is remarkable that the DSS incarcerated him for over 47 days until a court ordered his eventual release on Tuesday.
The ordeal of the flag-waving protesting members of IPOB in the hands of security agents does not need repeating here.
On July 30, Adamu, while speaking during a conference with senior police officers, said protesting Shi’ites constituted a grave threat to national security, law and order, socio-religious harmony, peace, good governance and the sovereign integrity of Nigeria. While he approves negotiations with bandits, Adamu posits that, “The import of this is that all forms of procession or protest by the IMN are now illegal and thus banned.” There is nothing more laughable as that.
Banditry, the type that has held the North-West in the jugular in recent months, thrives as a function of governance collapse and the failure of the state to rein in on the perpetrators. Nothing emboldens bandits and other criminals as knowing that the state lacks the capacity, or the political will, to check their reign of impunity. Instead of extending hands of fellowship to bandits, government should bring the full weight of the law on them. Besides, bandits flourish in ungoverned spaces. Purposeful leadership in the North-West in particular will go a long way in bringing succor to those left frustrated in the collapse of governance in the country. Functional societies deal ruthlessly with bandits to serve as a deterrent to others. Only dysfunctional ones negotiate with them.
jnwokeoma@punchng.com . 07085183894
