We need urgent measures to stop North from sliding into chaos — Bashir Dalhatu

In this interview with Trust TV’s 30 Minutes with Mannir Dan Ali, the Chairman Board of Trustees of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Alh. Bashir Dalhatu, spoke on the deteriorating security situation in the North and the decline in its economic fortune. Excerpts:

Let met start from your recent meeting, I mean in your current capacity as the chair of the Board of Trustees of the ACF. Is it a sort of renewal that we’ve seen you come out to actually apologise to people in the North that maybe it’s the elites that have failed Northerners and maybe Nigerians in general? Why do you have to do that?

Well, the recent meeting on the 4th of September in Kaduna was necessitated by the fact that we have realised that the our condition in the North has become very dire and continues to deteriorate and that something very urgent is needed to be done to at least slow or stop the continuous deterioration into a much worse condition and that if that is not done quickly, immediately, then maybe, all our collective existence may be threatened.

Okay, it’s been an existential problem as you see it.

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Absolutely, because if you remember 15, 16 years ago, the North was quiet, peaceful, and busy; people were going about their businesses, then the boko haram appeared and people thought it was going to be a very temporary thing.  It has gone on for 15 years now. Ten years ago, there was not a single bandit in the North West, now they are everywhere. So, we are very seriously frightened about the prospect of the growth of all this negative security situation.

And, therefore, it was necessary to meet, collecting all the leaders of the North from various aspects of life, people who have a lot of experience in various fields to come and share ideas and then conclude on what we need to do immediately.

But you are all like ex this, ex that, big men of yester years. You are not currently in government. Beyond talking, what exactly can you do?

Well, you are right, but beyond talking, we will approach those in authority, those who have both executive and legislative powers and indicate to them our position and ask them to do something more than what they are doing at the moment because what is being done at the moment does not seem to take care of the problem.

So, we need to talk to those in authority and bring the urgency of the matter to them and to also keep pressuring for a faster, quicker and even maybe more different approaches to all these problems that we are facing.

I’ve seen that even recently, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, a former Minister of Defence,  was more or less chiding the military, the security forces and saying that there is no excuse for not bringing an end to all this insecurity. Do you share that view?

Absolutely. Gen. Danjuma, of course, as we all know, is a very well respected General. He was also part of the army that had committed and was involved with the Civil War in Nigeria and had quickly taken care of it within three years, the beginning of civil war.

These skirmishes around our villages shouldn’t be as serious as a civil war but somehow it has continued to grow and prosper and we still continually looking and unable to take care of the situation.

It appears that what is called the war economy has more or less grown. I’ve seen the governor of Katsina accusing some districts heads, village heads of taking money to look the other way while the bandits kill their own subjects. The security forces of also being accused of taking from the bandits.  And ordinary people are also informants in their own communities. What can you do to bring an end to this?

Well, the truth is actually, the thing has become an industry, you are right, but I am hoping, and I think it is true, that these individuals, negative elements within our communities are a minority and what we are hoping that the examples that have been shown by arrest and detention and the trial and commitment will deter some people.

But we on our own, will continue to educate people, to sensitise the society on the negative aspect of these ills for them to come back to our senses because unless we do that and do it very quickly, nobody can predict how much trouble this region is going to go into.

Recently, the military was kind of celebrating the success over the elimination of one of the kingpins that is Halilu Sububu. But the Bello Turji’s, the Dogo Gides, the Ado Alerus and hundreds of other such bandit kingpins are free. Why do you think it is impossible for a simultaneous operation to be carried out to deal with the problem?

It is somewhat amazing really for us that are not in the military or the security population. This is the most amazing aspect of it. This is a military that had, like I mentioned, was in the civil war and was very, very successful. This military has gone all over the world and is a tested military and very well respected all over the world. But somehow it has become incapable, seemingly, of handling this kind of aspect.

But we are hoping that they will have to now think of something different. We have been advocating for a change, because so far, as I understand it, they have been on the defensive. So it is now time, I think, for us to take the war to these people, go on the offensive.

We have the experience in the military and the police and the security agencies to handle this matter. I think they have to have a coordination and consensus of opinion, operational guidance for them to succeed.

The bandits keep growing more and more belligerent and bold. But you remember Abubakar Shekau was doing the same and in the end he is no longer around.

So, we are hoping the success they had with this boozoo will encourage them further to pursue the rest of them and get this thing done as soon as possible.

But there is also the small issue of the police, who are supposed to be in charge of internal security. The military is dragged in because the problem appears to be beyond the capabilities of the police. There doesn’t appear to be a concerted effort to change the Nigerian policing architecture in terms of numbers, training and approaches.  So are we neglecting that area of the problem?

I think there is also the problem of orientation and attitude of the police. Recently, I read in the newspapers, not more than seven days ago, that the governor of Katsina State was complaining that about 20 villages were policed by about 30 policemen; twenty  villages under the circumstances of this banditry.

And then, in the same newspaper, another page, I read that the IG was sending 36,000 policemen to Edo for an election. So you can see the priorities are absolutely wrong and different. And I think the sooner we give this security utmost priority, the better.

But some people are even questioning all these numbers being thrown around elections, that where are the 35,000 to take to an election in Edo? Probably, it’s just been hyped up for some allowances, purposes or so.

In reality, we’ve seen the numbers are still inadequate for the population of Nigeria. Yet government waits and watch while there is bickering between the Inspector General of Police and the Police Service Commission over who has the right to even recruit new intakes.

Well all that is part of the Nigerian problem. I think the police, whether it is 36,000 or 10,000 or whatever, taking whatever number, huge number into a state for a day’s job, it compares very badly with the fact that for 20 villages under the siege of bandits, you have only 30 policemen.

The internal wrangling between the Police Service Commission and the IG’s office had been going on for quite a while. But it’s all part of the Nigerian problem. We don’t take care of things immediately. We allow them to grow until they burst in our face and everybody is worse for it.

But do we allow this kind of bickering to hinder a big national issue? That is the under policing and you just watched two institutions failing to carry out instructions of the president?

Well, we appear to have allowed it to fester for quite a while now. I think it’s now time for government to look into it very seriously and take immediate action to bring it to a halt so that other more urgent demands of the police service could be tackled immediately.

I have seen some governors in exasperation about the problem, encouraging communities to take up arms against the bandits and protect themselves and fight the bandits; is that a feasible alternative?

Well, part of our own, from the ACF point of view, part of the aspects that we believe the police can begin to look at really is that these volunteer forces that have been created by the states could actually be trained and converted into some paramilitary force and given weapons, proper weapons, proper training and proper tactics and techniques so that they can actually complement the efforts of the army and the police.

We think that those boys on the ground know the ground far better than the police or the military and they will be able to assist them. But there is no point pushing these boys into the bush and armed with only sticks and dane guns to face that kind of bandits with the weapons that we see them carry.

So, I think the government will do well to look into this aspect of training and and equipping these young men, volunteers, in order to complement the efforts of the military.

So, you are like suggesting to learn from the Borno model where Boko Haram was on the ascendancy until the joint task force, the JTF, the local communities were integrated into the fight against the  elements because they know them, they live within their communities and they know the terrain better as you did say.  You want similar thing for the banditry?

Absolutely, that system has worked there, it will work here also in the North West and North Central and we have not yet tried it but we will try it.

But what I’m saying is when you do it, you should also equip these children with the same kind of weapons or even better so that they can match fire with fire. But at the moment, they are at a very serious disadvantage. You push them into the bush, they get killed unnecessarily because they don’t carry the same kind of weapons.

We were talking about the banditry, the insecurity and what have you but it is not the only problem confronting the North. The bigger problem that many people even say is the current hunger that people are unable to eat.  Thanks to the beginning of the harvest season, it’s sort of beginning to ease but it’s still there because many people didn’t farm because of insecurity. What could be done to address this problem, especially when many businesses and offices are just closing down because of the harsh economic situation?

Well, you have to see our community, our society, our region from the point of view that the vast majority of us have been trained whether you are Muslim or Christian to be charitable. For the Muslim, you give zakah, you give assistance, you give sadaqah to the poor and the needy.

You also come and think about when government was really literally doing everything for the Northerner, take the Northerner to school free of charge, you give them all sorts of things. So, our people have grown, I think to be a bit lethargic and laid back and have in their mind continued to think that government or an individual good man in the society will provide.

So, a lot of our own people have lost the zeal or the will or the determination to actually look for their own businesses, their own keeps and establish whatever business or whatever kind of skill they may have in order to feed themselves and their family and keep the dignity of a human being.

So, we have grown very, very unable to fight this attitude and it’s been growing. If you go to all our towns and villages now, we are becoming a town full of beggars, full of people who are looking for food to eat. So, government is even realising that okay instead of giving them schools, hospitals, infrastructure, give them palliatives.

But how far can palliatives go and in any case majority of the people still want to earn an honest living but the situation, the economic situation, the cost of living is making them to go under in their little businesses.

You are right; the palliative will not go far that’s why it is important that our people learn to go back to what we used to be, people of skill, people of industry; when North was very prosperous because everybody was busy, everybody was working either on the farm or in a company or on his own.

But all these we have lost out because of so many reasons. First, of course, the insecurity has come so we cannot even go to the farms. Secondly, so many factors have been working against even as individual.

Now the Northern prospect has been seriously affected through continuous government budgetary allocation that has been quite negative to us and that has gone on for years and years and the effect is all now accumulating.

But some say that it’s not just about the allocation but the application of whatever little it is because some of the problem you are pointing out about people becoming beggarly is because they see that it pays more to be some political supporter rather than to be doing an honest hard work on the farm or in the shop or in the workshop. So, isn’t it like partly, the government responsible for and especially some blame the return of politics for all this kind of industry of people doing very little honest work but being the people with the higher earnings.

You are right there because you can trace this problem to the constitution. It’s very idealistic. The constitution believes that every government official there is a means of check and balance.

You have the governor, you have the president but you have the National Assembly to make sure that the president does the right thing. At the state level you have the governor, you have the state assembly to make sure that the governor does the right thing and you have the judiciary to be the arbiter.

But unfortunately, this expectation of the constitution is not realised at all. In practice, it’s not. The House of Assembly is always at the governor’s beck and call. The National Assembly is doing the same to the president. So, there is that break even in our consciousness to do the right thing.

So, our institutions are failing? That’s what we are seeing.

Very weak institutions are the main problem of this country. Institutions have not been allowed to grow and become really efficient.

But who do you blame? Because you know in the early days after the return to civil rule, we were always blaming the military. They’ve been gone for more than 25 years. So, who do we blame for the gradual erosion of the independence of the three arms of government? Now, they seem to be all in bed together.

All of us I think including you and I, because the person in power doesn’t like challenge of anything. He would rather be able to do what he wants to do.  And the person who is supposed to check him would rather enjoy favours from the same person and let the person continue to behave the way he wants to do.

So, will the “ranka dede” attitude take us anywhere. That’s where we are all groveling before the person in power.

This is exactly the reason why we have been going in a circle in this country. We don’t seem to be moving forward, we go round and round from one set of rulers to another set of rulers with the same problem. This has been persisting and it’s been growing, unfortunately even larger by the day.

So, what do we do now? What does the North do in itself and what do Nigerians do to get out of this quagmire?

The North has to start from the household. A Northerner has to now believe that he is himself responsible and accountable for his own action and also responsible to take care of himself, his family and therefore needs to find a job, whatever job it is, to sustain his existence.

But unfortunately, the Northerner would rather produce children and throw them into the street. So, this is what we are advocating for people to understand that those days must be gone, they are over now. The cracks, our major problem is these children on the streets.

So, the huge population explosion you think is the problem that is what leads to people abdicating responsibility, sending their children to “schools” when they end up in the streets more or less and what have you and which is why other parts of the country are saying Northerners are just breeding children, which they cannot support.

If they say so they would be right. Actually, because we still have not been able to get our people to understand. Unfortunately, in the North, the least people, the least capable people unfortunately are the highest producers of children and they still are sending their own children to these schools as some form of religious activity, which is not.

So, there is this even, part of what we are hoping to do is to talk to the ulamas and make sure that this Almajri system doesn’t exist anymore.

But it’s a very touchy and sensitive subject even much of the ulamas seem to want it because that is the source of their power as well and authority. So, how do you deal with it because some will say you are going against religious injunction, you are saying that we shouldn’t give birth.

Well, you see the the origin of the Almajiri began when there were no malams and no Islamic teachers in our towns. people had to travel to Borno, they say he has gone to “gabas” to learn Islamic tenets and the Quranic education. But now, in every little village, there is a malam capable of teaching these children what they are sent far away to to do.

The sending of the children far away from home is an irresponsibility of the father because even religiously, he’s supposed to be responsible and take care of his child and if you can have a malam in your own area, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to send a four, five year old child faraway.

These are the same children that have now grown to 10, 15, 16 and are bandits now in the bushes. They have no family ties, they don’t have empathy for anything, they have grown with bitterness because they don’t know love.

They did not have parental love.

Nothing; so you cannot be shocked that they can kill people and laugh over it. So, we must now teach our people to cut their coat according to their size, which we have not been doing but, which I think of necessity, is now forcing us to do.

We will talk to the malams. I have spoken to many, a lot of them are absolutely against it. We are going to have a position that we will bring to the 19 Northern governors and tell them that listen, you have to take drastic action by stopping this.

It had been tested before in Kano when the Air Force officer, Umaru Dasu was governor under the military, he proscribed it.

But proscription doesn’t usually solve the problem.

But it worked during his time.

Under military.

Yes, so if it would work with the law, it can work anytime, if there is the political will.

When the law is observed. I know you are a lawyer but the law is being observed in breaches  like…

I agree with you there but our people, our leaders, our politicians must now have the political will, because 90% of our problem is grown out of this system of not caring for our own children or producing children that we cannot take care of, we cannot educate them, we cannot feed them, we cannot cloth them.