To Survive You Have To Fight: Central Nigeria And The Terrorists (Part 2)
5. The Truth Of The Matter
Land and life are the two assets that people come into the world with even before they achieve anything of their own effort. It is true that due to conditions and exigencies, individuals, families and entire groups could lose their lands. But they retain their lives! No wonder the right to life is fundamental and universal. Land could be lost through exigencies both genuine and trivial. Our people are losing limbs, life and land.
Let us be very clear about some of these issues: the desire for conquest, land grabbing, and violent appropriation of the property of others for personal gains and advantages is as old as man himself. The Bible has told us in Jeremiah 17 that the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked who can understand it? This is why those who keep asking why do the terrorists take pleasure in killings and tension and general unrest are one of these three things: naive, ignorant or plain simpletons. People including the best of us and kindest, will always take advantage of situations and other people so far as they can, especially when there are no consequences to bad behavior. Impunity is a cancer that even if slowly but surely catches us up with everyone.
If you permit me to digress, there was a time that those who are complaining today of injustice where supporters of impunity. They didn’t know it will come round and take a toll on them. Hausa people say “in dutse ya wuche kai na, to ko ta kan uban kowa ta fado” (if the stone does not land on me, then it is alright if it lands on the head of whosever). Most if those who lost their lives on the highway as innocent passersby are relatives and family or friends to those who think it doesn’t matter since it cannot touch me. I remember General Usman Alkali a nice army officer who was about to retire killed on his way to see family in Bauchi. The collateral damage could be one of yours. The likes of Orji Uzor Kalu, Rochas Okorocha who have been schemmed out today are shouting injustice and crying on camera but they are part of the gang that has held us to ransom with with wicked justifications.
This terrorist incursion upon our people and land started since 2001 at least for us in Plateau State. Some of those born in 2001 are now graduates. I completed secondary education on July 7, 2001. Today I am looking forward by the mercies of God to my fortieth birthday by August. It has been along and unrelenting terrorization for our people. When it started we could afford to claim naivety and shock, but now we know most assuredly that they mean business. By their consistency, tact and determination, the terrorists have told us in uncertain terms and most loudly to that action speaks louder than voice.
It is either we take the cue and sort the issue once and for all or continue to depend on a Govt that does not care or pretends to care but lack the guts, compassion and sincerity to tackle the issue. Our Govts have no courage of their conviction, if they have any at all; ‘Pan’ people of Qua’an-Pan Local Govt Area call “flak mut.” Our Govts at all levels are either irresponsible, rascals or wicked. For the umpteenth time they are not helpless! These terrorists are rag tag amateurs whose only advantage is principalities and powers in high places. Our vigilante have been doing well containing them otherwise the stories would have been worse.
6. Our Govts Must Rise Above Prevarication
It is hightime we name the problem by its name. It is only the truth that can save us in this country. The ritual of hypocritical evenness that characterizes the management of peace in Nigeria must give way to the sacrament of truth. In the name of finding the balance or the quest to be seen to be just, we have romanced the issues long enough and they have lost their fancy to our chagrin. The culture of sexy language so as to be on the safe side and pious plenitudes has taken us nowhere. Meeting after meeting. Negotiation after another and photo-op reconciliation has only given the culprit more chance to plan the next bite.
An issue that is as clear as day does not need all the committee and emergency meetings that have bookmarked our response so far. If there was ever a problem that is obvious even to the blind then this Fulani attacks and terrorism is one. Our people have received direct phone calls and heard from pepertrators plans of attacks and acknowledgements when attacks take place.
Recommendations:
A)
Peace is not the absence of war but the dispensation of justice. There can be no true peace if people from Shonong in Bachit District bordering Karshi in Kaduna State cannot return to their ancestral homes after 20 years of forced evacuation. The people of Rangai-Bwat have built a new church in exile after exhausting their hope of ever returning back to their home after 12 years of refugee-ship. Ranchol community is now occupied by the invaders and terrorists who use it as a base to coordinate further attacks. They have sworn to uproot some key villages that irritate them as eye sores along their murderous corridor: Jol, Kwi (behind Yakubu Gowon Airport Heipang Jos), Wereng (Camp), Rim and Lwa.
Our people have learned not to wait or depend on the Govt. because they have repeatedly come short for them. They have to survive inspite of the Govt. and it’s befuddling lethargy. These above listed communities are all in Riyom Local Govt Area. Barkin Ladi which shares borders with Riyom will have their own list of villages marked for annihilation by the terrorists. Ditto for, Bassa, Bokkos and Mangu. These villages are only shadows of their former selves. The few brave youths who remain in these endangered communities of a few households (some as few as 15-20) are wearing out due to constant invasions. The few youths falling one by one after each round of attacks. Women and children go to more fortified communities to sleep then return home by daylight.
Two years ago, Wereng camp suffered a vicious invasion barely two hours after I finished celebrating a Sunday Mass and left. That day the youths I saw keeping watch in the bushes under the unrelenting Jos plateau august rains says it all. I don’t know how to explain to you that these are cold places normally and then to have to patrol the area day and night under sun or rain.
Our people must fight not because they like to fight but because they have no option. We are tired of hypocritical peace meetings and fake reconciliations. From experience, it only buys the terrorists time to plan their next attacks. Facilitators at such meetings be they security agents or NGOs pander to the antics of terrorists by romancing the issues and avoiding to name the devil in the name of avoiding escalation or the tag of bias. The Lord Jesus himself has said only the truth shall set us free! The most culpable is the convenient name given to the genocidal activities. How do you call a situation whereby you are ambushed on your way to your farm or market, or rounded up in your hut while enjoying a night’s sleep after a day of hard work at the farm or mines and slaughtered as a chicken, clashes? That is very unconscionable! It can never be a clash. A clash involves sporadic arguments supported by a few physical punches. At worst, shortlived scenes of matchetes attacks and insults.
But we are dealing with a well funded terrorists network that has targets and timelines. They use new bikes, factory supplied rifles and endless ammunition that makes security agents green with envy. Their combat gears are military grade. We face them always, it is no secret. That they carry their AKs around casually is no longer news.
The Govt can do better without the perfunctory and boring emergency security meetings and instead go to these communities and ask them how they can assist them to protect themselves. Just a fraction of the money they are spending on security personnel that merely have nuisance value as far as our people are concerned can go a long to sort this issue once and for all. Repeatedly, we have seen security patrols seize the few dane guns and matchetes our people carry only to let them down when they are attacked some times in the full glare of watchful security agents with hands akimbo slinging their rifles like knapsacks across their shoulder. You won’t believe but these things happen.
B)
The security arrangements whereby vigilante groups jointly mount checkpoints with conventional security agents is the best because as it is our people even have cause to suspect the security agents. The popular word is “if they pass around the village in the name of patrols then expect an attack the very next moment.” These kind of situations might well be mere coincidences but then many of our people are beginning to think that there is a correlation between attacks and patrols. Unfortunately, I have not been able to convince them otherwise. The other day, one of the youth leaders of a community had to call the sector command to ask what soldiers where doing in his community at dusk? He asked that they leave. It is that bad. I wish I don’t have to say these things but these are things you hear only from people like us who have the trust of the people.
The quest for State Police was supposed to address the obvious gaps that has made everyone of us, including top officers of the country’s security architecture victims. Many of our youths have been trained as community police but how do you police a situation where your beat includes patrolling and containing gun wielding terrorists with your bare hands? Our local vigilante are not and have never been found wanting in courage and resilience. Even without any arms and security appurtenances whatsoever, the terrorists are weary of them how much more if they can carry simple weapons and accessories such as matchetes and hunting or licensed guns?
I have shared the story of what I saw in Imo State in my previous piece. It says a lot about the determination to over come the situation. There is no leader who has his people and their safety at heart that will not consider every option possible and available for him. The top echelons of the security agents are already overwhelmed. They will not mind that we devised more ingenious and creative ways of sorting these issues. This is what Hope Uzodinma of Imo has done.
This breakdown of trust and perceived collusion with the terrorists unfortunately is the cause of protest road blocks and attacks against innocent passersby. And our people will give you details on why they believe there is a collusion. ID cards have been allegedly found at attack scenes that bear the name and identity of security personnel. They have seen helicopters landing in the middle of the bush and taking off where the Fulani stay. I have mentioned security agents with a full compliment of their deployment, allegedly standing aloof and watching terrorists attacking and decimating villagers in broad daylight.
These are open secrets. In fact some attacks are within shouting distances of security posts. For example the killings of people on the road to Gol-Hoss. The stories around the last killings in Kyi and Sambak areas are that the attackers fled after killing the 7 young men towards the nearby security post which is a mere kilometer. Recently our women from Hoss came out in protest after the killing of two victims near a security post and challenged the security agents. They believe something was amiss. It didn’t end well. Ngo Elizabeth Sunday the Chairperson of my Church around the security post had her wrist bone broken when one of the security agents manhandled her.
One of the ways to prevent this suspicion and distrust is to have a detachment of vigilante patrolling alongside the security agents. We have seen the work that civilian JTF have done in the fight against insurgency. I have also shared my experience in Imo. Success will be a wild mirage if the trust deficit between security personnel and terrorized communities is not addressed. We can only play the ostrich if we are not interested in securing and protecting law abiding citizens.
Our people talk in hush tones about these issues and their impressions because instead of the allegations to lead to investigation and remediation, it ends up as an occasion for witch hunt and victimization by the security personnel. Our people believe that the mobile police units that initially patrolled and contained the situation, where much more effective. Some of the rumor we hear which I cannot verify is the gist in the barracks which is that coming for peace keeping in Jos and other hotspots of this violence is a gold mine. A certain police officer told me how a soldier on peace mission abroad was persuaded to come back and be deployed to Jos even if he would have to pay his way to be deployed because Jos is paying better than peace keeping abroad.
For us in Plateau State for instance, Govt of Jonah of Jonah Jang established the Operation Rainbow security outfit. This is very commendable. I am sure maintaining such an outfit has prohibitive cost implications that is why the Govt of Simon Lalong abandoned it. We did not see them in any action any longer. Their vehicles are still road worthy but their combat has ceased. Instead, what we see is mischievous and reckless propaganda from govt hangers on about a bogus peace plan and restoration of peace. No peace was restored. The killings did not stop. Internally displaced persons have not been resettled. Ancestral lands annexed by terrorists rendering entire clans and kindred landless, farmless and homeless thereby being squatters with family and friends are not even being discussed for repossession by the rightful custodians. Our land resources which have nutrient and fertility deficiency no have further dwindled. I have two churches that have had to flee their ancestral homes for 12 years running now. No hope of return in sight. Instead the terrorists are more emboldened to carry out further ethnic cleansing and land grabbing. The litany of displaced and annexed villages only keeps increasing.
8. Conclusion
The Govts should ask former Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state how he contained the terrorists in his state when he was Governor before the establishment of Amotekun. The rumor is that at the height of the kidnappings across his State, he would ask the people what they need to defend themselves. Give them and they will stand the terrorists and finish them off. One of the undoings of all Govt efforts is bureaucracy. When security issues are bureaucratized initiatives and resources end up suffocated, frustrated, exposed and siphoned.
I will not end this piece without a resounding commendation to some of the security personnel. Some of them are officers while others are ordinary soldiers. Our people have high praises for those of them that gave risked their own life and stood our for them because they did what they are supposed to do. They did not join the hands akimbo crew. They fired shots and chased terrorists and saved lives. May God bless those ones. Amen.
