By Ali Abubakar Sadiq
The recent happenings in the North are clear manifestation of the adage that “No one will be safe unless everyone one is safe”. In the last couple of weeks, a gubernatorial candidate from Zamfara was killed along Kaduna-Abuja highway, a sitting commissioner of Education in Katsina is assassinated in his home in Katsina state, tens of passengers were burnt alive in Sokoto, a Mosque attacked in Niger state, several passengers were kidnapped along Kaduna-Abuja highway, a bandit who sustained gun shots after battling security forces was caught with explosives and he confessed they were meant to blow the Kaduna-Abuja rail line, kidnappers are laying siege along Kaduna-Zaria road perhaps to cut-off passengers that trooped to Kaduna to board the train for Abuja.
The scenery at Rigasa rail station is a snap-shot of the insecurity chaos we are facing in the north as you can easily see a convoy of senior security officer conveying their master to board the train for Abuja in fear of the almighty bandits/kidnappers on the highway to Abuja. A friend recently informed me during the Abuja-Kaduna highway siege for four days he had to follow a security patrol convoy to Kaduna to travel home for weekend and arranged to travel back with them on his return trip back to Abuja.
I dare say, no life is sacred in this country, neither that of the poor downtrodden masses nor the elites. Scores were killed, are being killed and will continue to be killed for naught. To be fair, the worthlessness of human lives in this country didn’t begin with this administration, it only reached an unprecedented proportion now.
For several decades high profile killings shocked the country, soon to be forgotten in the dustbin of history: Dele Giwa, Kudirat Abiola, Bola Ige, Abubakar Rimi, Harry Marshall, Chuba Ukadigbo, Ahmed Pategi, Funsho Williams, Ayo Daramola just to mention a few. Not a single one of their killers were apprehended and prosecuted, and those are high profile Nigerians. The extra-judicial killings of Alhaji Buji Fai, a commissioner under Ali Madu Sheriff as a Boko Haram member, and that of the sect leader, Muhammad Yusuf unleashed the mayhem we see as Boko Haram. Tens of thousands were innocently killed by the Boko Haram campaign of terror since 2009. The murderous rampage we witnessed during the Farmer-Herder crises over the years, which was the precursor of our present banditry and kidnap, cannot be quantified in terms of loss of innocent lives and livelihood.
Life is so sacred that God equate it with “Killing one person is akin to murdering humanity” (Quran 5:32). The first line of the American constitution goes “Life…liberty…and pursuit of happiness”. Man as a vicegerent of God on earth is endowed with God-like attributes of creativity, but the only thing God has hindered man from attaining under his creativity is the ability to create life, of any kind, the simple reason why life is inviolable. You cannot take life, because you cannot create it, is what makes it inviolable, unless under the law, which always comes as the last resort, but not to a generation of post independence Nigerians. How many people in the last six decades were tried and convicted for murder in this country?
Nigeria is facing its present challenges because of the blood of the innocent shed, especially in the last 20 years under the current civilian dispensation. The innocent victims were yearning for justice from their graves, which isn’t forthcoming. The more we ignore the sanctity of all life, the harsher we see the kinds of killings we are witnessing. No one in his wildest dream ever imagined a situation where young adolescent girls from the North could be used as human bombs. When Miyetti Allah early in this administration, cried over the massacre and burning of whole villages in Taraba/Benue/Adamawa axis, their call fell on deaf ears. Likewise when the Fulani herders in Zamfara were systematically evicted from their lands and their cattle rustled, no one rises in their defense. Majority of the bandits today that engaged in the lucrative kidnap business were Fulani’s that became victims of the above injustices of losing families and livelihood, and now vent their vengeance by unleashing their mayhem on all and sundry, as Miyetti once warned. But should injustice pay injustice? Not at all, it will only breed more injustice.
In the last decade, a whopping $2 Billion dollars, a billion dollar apiece between Jonathan and the Buhari administrations, were allocated for security and we had never been more insecure. Where are the monies when security operatives still complained of lack of adequate weaponry, logistics and welfare? A fraction of that money could provide the logistics to secure our highways across the country. Four hundred soldiers could secure Abuja-Kaduna highway, as once the Falgore forest was secured with less. And we haven’t forgotten how, when in this administration not a single chicken was killed along the Abuja-Kaduna highway for three months during the rehabilitation of the Abuja Airport, simply because the road had been adequately secured as all of our elites where plying the road to Abuja. In a country where gubernatorial elections were on average secured with 30,000 policemen, why would our forests allowed to become a haven for bandits and kidnappers?
The root of our insecurity beside the lack of justice delivery is of course the disparity in the distribution of wealth. So few are stinking rich while the majority wallows in abject poverty, no matter what measures we take towards curtailing the insecurity in the country it won’t work unless proper and equitable means of the distribution of wealth is deployed at the Federal, States and local government levels. All of our problems have indigenous solution but we lack the social and political will to address them. We have millions of graduate that if they could easily access funding they could be self-employed but unfortunately, despite the fact that this administration had came up with some of the most brilliant programs (especially NIRSAL), such programs were mostly used as propaganda and not reaching those that needed it, but few cronies close to those in power. If the Nirsal program were to be funded with one quarter of the money spent on security in the budget and transparently and equitably distributed to states with a transparent selection process, it is enough to turn around the fortunes of SME’s in the country, which is the engine of growth of any economy, but sadly ignored here. If our banks were to migrate from being a lair of loot to an institution that fund SME’s in single digit interest rates, we have enough market at home to turn the fortunes of the economy. With insignificant manufacturing base, the pressure on our currency due to the nature of our mono-economy and over dependence on import, will perpetually exert pressure on our currency to constantly hovers over devaluation and stagnate our interest rates at higher double digit.
Buhari administration had woefully failed Nigerians in failing to deliver its core campaign promises and it is only delusional to think what they failed to do in the last six and a half years they could do in one and half. What should be our prime concern now, is to see Buhari hand over power come 2023 peacefully and that could only happen when the north is secured from its current travails of insecurity. All hands must be on deck to achieve that (government, politicians, cleric and the masses) because security is everybody’s business as much as insecurity affects all.
Sadiq can be reached at aleesadeeq1@yahoo.com