The recently released but horrifying statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that poverty in Nigeria is discriminately and disproportionately spread, largely dipping rural Nigerians in its depressive dye, while being more sparing of those who scratch and scramble their way out of rural areas, and make it to the city.
Today, it is also a known fact that the insecurity which has convulsed the country, dragging it to the edge of the precipice many times has feasted on the deprivations and depredations that are abundant in rural areas, making rural Nigerians the biggest victims of insecurity and insurgency by far.
That rural Nigerians have had to blend grinding poverty with grating insecurity remains one of the gravest injustices of Nigeria as things stand.
Reports have it that on December ,2022, armed Fulani herdsmen dressed in military uniforms attacked Egbor, Umujiovu and Mgbuji communities in Eha-Amufu killing scores of innocent persons.
Reports also had it that the latest attack continued the string of attacks on the innocent communities and left about 16 persons dead. Most worrisome was the fact that the attackers were said to have worked with their collaborators from Benue State.
Another day, another attack.
It is one more area in Nigeria plunged into blinding grief, with people forced to bury their loved ones, and count their losses, at the hands of Nigeria’s biting insecurity while the perpetrators retreat into their hideouts to celebrate their successes and plan future attacks.
All over the country, rural communities remain vulnerable to vicious attacks from those who have a bone to pick with the Nigerian state. Because targets in urban areas would prove more protected and harder to reach, these attackers keep hitting rural areas and claiming trophies, thereby asking all manner of questions of the viability of Nigeria’s existence at a country.
It has become the practice that after such attacks, the authorities commiserate with the victims and vow that it will never happen again. Yet, experience has shown that it is only often a matter of time before it happens again.
It used to be gripping poverty.But in recent times, insecurity has emerged as Nigeria’s most potent challenge. And perhaps, its most deleterious effects are captured in how it has wiped out confidence in Nigeria’s security architecture as well as well as deepened the poverty haunting the land.
Nigeria is very close to crucial elections.Already,the Independent National Electoral Commission has graphically described the potency of the threat insecurity poses to the electoral process in some communities around the country.
Unless something is done and urgently too, insecurity may yet add insult to injury by preventing many Nigerians from exercising a key civic duty. It would be the most serious slight yet.
For now,the least the authorities can do is to ensure that all those slaughtered in Eha-Amufu by rampaging criminals find justice.It is especially important that it be seen to be the case in a region where doubts about the Nigerian project is continue to increase by the day.
Kene Obiezu,
Twitter: @kenobiezu
