A strange disease is ravaging Nigeria, and it seems all hands are on deck to cure it once and for all. It is an ailment that makes otherwise docile citizens doubt the words of their leaders. Nobody really knows when this virus entered the minds of the people. Usually, since we all believe that we vote but God makes leaders, in late Imam Shekau’s kingdom, we’d all be wiped out for apostasy. No theocratic nation doubts the words of its divinely ordained leaders. Scriptures record harsh punishments for those that did in the past.
In his celebrated New Year message, people-elected and God’s newly anointed, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu told the nation that he has tackled insecurity within his few months in office than any government preceding him. That is a very bold statement for the third Nigerian president of this dispensation without a military background. It is one statement that is not just easily verifiable but with tangible impact to any Nigerian without access to sirens, convoys and armed security.
Unfortunately, Nigerians did not believe Tinubu. The last divinely selected and popularly endorsed president in Nigeria was Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general, America trained master strategist who subscribed to the notion of his mentor General Sani Abacha, that if an insurgency survived beyond 48 hours, then it is an inside job. Even in putting his master strategy to bear, he failed to tackle insecurity. The Nigerian Security Tracker,
(NST) recorded 63,111 deaths in eight years of Buhari in office. That translates to an average of 8,000 needless deaths each year or an average of 22 deaths a day.
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In spite of that, Nigerians allowed God to choose this new leader from the same party. While humans describe madness as doing the same things and expecting a different result, the divine order defines differently.
Tinubu’s short term security score card looks impressive. A sloppy army bombing of worshippers marking the birthday of their prophet led to the slaughter of 200 before we stopped counting. The president ordered an inquiry and we await its outcome. He promised that those responsible would be brought to book. He proceeded to make mass promotions in the armed forces.
Weeks later Plateau State joined the north central killing field when on the eve of another religious holiday marauders unleashed a bloodbath executing anyone along their path. Enemies of the state claim that the killings have not stopped even though the caravan of news has moved on. Alas, the words of President Jones, Tinubu’s predecessor, that terrorism has come to stay and that Nigerians should ‘embrace’ it rings true. Jones did not vacate that even after losing favour with God and his appointed voters on earth.
In the days of President Jones, Nigeria was fighting only insurgency. There was kidnapping, but only of expatriates with distinctive skin colours. It was a period when most Nigerians slept with one and a half eyes closed. Today, they can’t afford to sleep or snore and it has nothing to do with sleep apnoea. To snore is to attract the presence of head-hunters and organ harvesters.
Even as the world’s religious capital, too many people jump the divine queue to wealth in line with the adage that heaven helps only those who help themselves. These set of God’s creation believe that the poor of the earth suffer because of their failure to connect the divine code for sudden wealth. They go around, armed with sharp knives, cudgels and cutlasses harvesting the heads of anyone that walked into their traps. The dead are not spared, their corpses are exhumed and vital organs are harvested to crack the code of sudden wealth. These are the disciples of the priests who make people believe in the impossible. As the saying goes, those who can make people believe the impossible also recruit them to commit the abominable.
In all these, Abuja, the centre of governance has the characteristics of the city of refuge. Gods anointed, the president, and his presidency reside here in an impregnable mansion aptly named Aso Rock. The rest of the Who is Who in the three arms of governance live and work here. These wheeler-dealers do not travel alone. Their privileged life means they are safely and securely guarded by security armed to the teeth and licensed to kill with no questions asked. For entitlement to a good night’s sleep, one needs to collide with the divine grace of having one as a neighbour for guaranteed vicarious security.
The rest of Abuja and those who live far from it but brag in their villages that they too live in the federal capital territory are on their own. Like the rest of the insurgency-prone parts of Nigeria, they are required to be presidents of their own resident – sometimes required to provide roads and infrastructure, as well as security. Their heavy steeled doors and windows confirming that they are prisoners of an insecure nation. In other climes, such self-imprisonment is regarded as a fire hazard.
The police is overwhelmed; trying to safeguard those that matter and to tax those that don’t. When an SOS gets to them, their vehicles have either no engine oil or petrol or both. Sometimes the OC Crime with keys to the armoury has gone to sleep. Recently, they have proven to be very proactive with setting out what slogans are allowed under their les majeste laws and which ones are as dangerous as armed robbery. For instance, it just issued a decree outlaying this year’s poor man’s haka – no gree for anybody; literally stand up and fight back. The police think it could lead to civil disobedience and has warned people to stop using it. For instance, you did not read it here.
Every northerner who makes it to Abuja believes they are safe from insecurity, protected as it were by the federal might. Such was the fate of Mansoor Al-Kadriyar, the father of the six children kidnapped in Bwari, a suburb of Abuja. The children and their father were picked up and a ransom was demanded of them. The father was released to go find the N60 million the kidnappers demanded. However, over the weekend, they dispatched the body of one of the girls, Nabeeha, back to show how serious they take this new business that leaves beleaguered victims with no option than negotiate for their own life and freedom.
As a Go-Fund-Me account was raising money, Isa Ali Pantami, one of Buhari’s controversial ministers announced with gusto that a friend of his would be meeting the N50 million ransom demand for the release of the remaining girls. Pantami was the technocrat that instituted a national registration exercise that was linked to a bank verification number as the means of fighting insecurity that yielded the 63,111 figures mentioned supra.
While in government, not once was his data ever known to have helped security forces foil crime. Now out of government he puts the blame on security forces. Here is hoping that Nabeeha’s ghost would force Pantami to tell the nation what it needs to know and that that information would help the government put a handle on security for we are doomed if they don’t.
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