With cunning killers sharpening their killing knives on the bloody grindstone that Kaduna state has become, the good people of the state, as well as Nigerians as a whole, must address the existential carnage that threatens one of Nigeria`s most iconic states.
For many years now, Kaduna State has known no genuine peace. It was at the cusp of the new millennium that the state began to unravel. The crisis that engulfed the state was as cutting as the death and destruction were harrowing.
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Faced with the maelstrom that religion and ethnicity whip up in the politics of the state, Mr Nasir El-rufai, the governor of the state has become another man, different from the one who as Minister of the FCT breathed life into Abuja, Nigeria`s Federal Capital Territory.
Faced with an increasingly tenuous security situation, Mr Nasir El-rufai has struggled to douse the flames that are determined to consume the state. There have been multiple statements interpreted to have severally abandoned those most affected and afflicted by the crises. Under El-rufai `s watch, there have been subtle messages to the effect that some indigenes of the state are more equal than others.
On its own part, the Federal Government has not done much. In 2015, the differences between the Islamic Movement of Nigeria and the Kaduna State Government flared into a ruinous confrontation that left many dead at the hands of the Nigerian Army. The Kaduna State Government acting as both judge and jury was to constitute a panel of enquiry into the crisis led by Justice Mohammed Garba.
The Federal Government, acting more on sentiments than evidence, set up camp with the Kaduna State Government. A legal battle ensued and after five years, a Kaduna State High Court found that IMN, especially its incarcerated leader had done no wrong and was instead the victim of a collaboration between administrations that put jaundice before justice.
Kaduna State has an appreciable number of Christians and Muslims. Many of the problems in the state appear to spring from the fact that political power is used in the state to leave those outside certain religious and ethnic groups to the hyenas haunting the state. Insecurity duly ravages the state.
Ironically, the state hosts some of Nigeria`s premier institutions, many of them national security institutions where those entrusted with Nigeria`s security are formed. The Nigeria Defence Academy is located in Kaduna State and when bandits stampeded the school some months ago, killed two soldiers and made away with one, alarm bells chimed across the length and breadth of the country.
The abductions have been ceaseless. School kids have been matched away from their hostels at nights; undergraduates from higher institutions have been kidnapped; travelers have been abducted too, and most dreadfully; the epidemic of abductions loosened upon the state is not about to let up.
With each abduction, the canon of questions booms: how do the criminals work so efficiently? Where do they keep their hapless victims while they wait for ransom? Who are those that make their operations sail so smoothly?
Countless questions continue to go unanswered in Kaduna state, and with these unanswered questions, the crises rocking the state continue, especially threatening innocent women and children.
The ambiguity over the challenges in the state have to abate and soon too so that the security challenges threatening the state can be addressed once and for all.
This is key if the good people of the state are to return to their normal lives.
Kene Obiezu writes from Abuja
