The increasing spate of killings in Nigeria has assumed alarming proportions. The geographical spread of armed conflicts, terrorism, banditry, kidnappings for ransom, and other forms of violence against the people of this country is, to say the least, worrisome.
We are now a people held hostage by armed gangs and other non-state actors. What started like a cruel joke in the North East has now gone around all the regions of the nation.
Recently, a total of 46 people – seven teachers and 39 students – were abducted from Community High School, Ahoro-Esinele, and Yawota Baptist Nursery and Primary School, in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State. Among them is a 2-year old, of Yawota Baptist Nursery and Primary School.
Last Friday, the remains of Michael Oyedokun, a mathematics teacher abducted from Community High School after a viral video was released by his captors, was committed to Mother Earth, with families, friends, and colleagues wailing, at his residence in Owolake, Ogbomoso.
Residents who attended the burial in Ogbomoso, according to reports, described him as a dedicated teacher committed to his students.
The coordinated incidents were particularly more troubling because some of the captives are less than 5 years. How will these toddlers be coping with the hash conditions of the weather in the forests or wherever they are being held? How and when did we now descend to the level where these terrorists now target nursery school children?
In 2021 when the then Ondo State Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) insisted and urged Nigerians to stop branding terrorism as banditry, many of those who now pretend to care about the escalating state of killings were either attacking him or too afraid to speak out not to offend the feudal Lords that the late Muhammadu Buhari represented.
While many who wanted to be politically correct were either tongue-tied or chose to classify these mass murderers as bandits, Akeredolu insisted that those involved in kidnappings, bombing and assault on fellow beings should be appropriately addressed as terrorists.
Akeredolu’s insistence cost him a great deal and ensured that he strained his relationship with the leadership of his party, the APC.
This was one year after he rallied his fellow South West governors to form the South West Security Network (Amotekun) on Thursday, January 9, 2020. This, again, was in spite of his failing health, which eventually led to his demise on Wednesday, December 27, 2023, as well as the rejection of the Fulani hegemony and his party leadership against the move. In fact, the then minister of justice and attorney general of the federation, Abubakar Malami, took it as a personal affair.
Barely three years after Akeredolu’s death, somethings worse than what he saw that informed his actions are now happening in his beloved South West region.
What can be worse than kidnapping toddlers for ransom? What can be worse than exposing these innocent children to the vicissitudes of the harsh weather and life in the jungle?
Aketi, as he was fondly called, saw this coming and even pushed for Amotekun to bear arms, but the Buhari regime that turned his eyes away from the activities of his armed Fulani kinsmen refused.
Now that Aketi is no more and very little is heard nowadays of Amotekun, which way for the South-West region? Who will fill the void created by the death of Akeredolu?
This calls for very serious concerns for governments because, while some were still thinking that these acts can only take place in some distant places and not likely to get to the southern parts of the country, the Osun coordinated attacks are crude reminders to all that we must all wake up to our present reality.
I have always frowned at the southern governors for being so docile and timid when it comes to issues affecting the south.
When some Northern governors were pushing for sharia laws in the north, in spite of resistance, then by President Olusegun Obasanjo, they still went on, and today, over 20 states in the North are practising Sharia legal jurisprudence.
Will the solution to ending these wantom killings be left until the establishment of the planned state police and how soon will that become a reality? Or are we going to wait until after 2027 to respond to what is clearly an existential threat? Will the proposed state police come on before 2027 or do we just wait for what is clearly the most important issue to the political class; election 2027 to come and go before we address the issue since it now appears that governance is almost in abeyance until the political future of our politicians are determined?
In the meantime, everything possible should be done to reunite these teachers and their impressionable pupils with their families as soon as possible.
To those who lost their lives and the many more who are daily being killed by these beasts and their sympathetic sponsors both in and out of government, may God console them.
