BY BARR. YAKUBU B GALADIMA, ESQ
Nigeria as a country is going through a very daunting moment since after independence; a variant one at that. With these lingering, I do know as of fact that there are few people who are incurably optimistic that it would be better with our country someday. This notwithstanding, does not obliterate nor corrode the fact that it would only take the government of the day and successive ones to be proactively brutal in tackling issues that have set Nigeria on a collision course or, better still, plunging itself into the abyss. All efforts must be geared towards lifting the country out of the quagmire.
I am writing this piece due to the news, although not new, of the abduction of the school children of Kagara in Niger State of Nigeria. The way and manner with which they were abducted and the alacritous way their abductors announced their ransom got me squirmed. As my mind became agitated on the one hand, my head was pommelled by many questions begging for answers.
Some of these questions are: Are all Nigerians strikingly rich that with the economic crunch the abductors of the school children would be demanding for a humongous amount of N500 million as ransom? Have all our security agencies woefully failed that till date criminals could still be having a field’s day? Has Nigeria become a pariah state whereby nothing seems to be working? Or has kidnapping in the absence of employment become the most lucrative employment? These and more were some of the questions that flooded my head.
The issue of security is the sole preserve of the government which it should not only be heard that the government is doing everything to ensure its sustenance, but also that the government is seen stopping at nothing until it so guarantees that lives and property of citizens are secured.
Admittedly, and alluding to the recent statement by the Minister of Defence that every Nigerian should rise up to the challenge of insecurity, it is clear that everyone should defend themselves. However, I hold the opinion that the government whose onerous duty it is to guarantee the security of lives and property should compensate Nigerians at instances they defended or they would defend themselves against their aggressors since government with everything at its disposal has shamefully failed.
On the vexed issue of insecurity upon which the main crux of my piece would crystallize on, what is eminently clear is that there has been an upsurge exponentially on the different phases of insecurity. However, what beats my imagination is that through this, perpetrators and accomplices could still walk with pomp and pageantry on the streets as free men and women.
Not so long, the mass media was awash with news on the meeting between an Islamic preacher Sheikh Ahmad Gumi with bandits on the need to for men in the forest to lay down their arms. Just some days ago after the abduction of the school children of Kagara in Niger State, news had filtered about the meeting between Sheikh Gumi and their abductors whereby he assured the nation that soon the abducted school children would be released. He was also said to have suggested that the abductors should be given a “blanket amnesty” so they could lay down their arms. Good a thing that Sheikh Gumi has risen above the tide to negotiate with bandits to lay down their arms.
Flowing from the above foregoing, Gumi isn’t the first that have negotiated with “criminally minded” persons like the bandits, kidnappers, abductors etc. In fact, by way of a flash back, our President was at some point nominated by the dreaded insurgent to serve as the Chief Negotiator for Boko Haram with the then erstwhile government of President Goodluck Jonathan. So, if our President now was at a point primed to be a negotiator for Boko Haram, although presumably, I do not see anything wrong in Sheikh Gumi negotiating or becoming a negotiator for and on behalf of the bandits.
Furthermore, some State Governors too have had to negotiate with bandits, killer herdsmen by way of a truce broker for a lasting peace. In fact, the governor of Kaduna State, Mal Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai was at a point said he paid off foreign herdsmen to stop killing people in the southern part of Kaduna State. Now, whether these “moves” made have yielded any fruits or not is a question to be answered another day.
Amidst these, my concern which I will perspicuously state below are more of questions that are begging for answers, viz :
- If President Buhari could in the past be penned down to negotiate for and on behalf of Boko Haram, why then is it that Boko Haram and its vagaries have held sway the most now that He’s the president?
- If President Buhari was alleged to have contact with members of Boko Haram then presumably, can’t he contact them again to surrender and give up the fight? Given that Boko Haram have not been decimated militarily.
- On Sheikh Gumi’s meeting with the bandits, did he meet with them on his own accord? Or was he an emissary of the government? Put differently, did the bandits suggest that he should negotiate on their behalf?
- For Sheikh Gumi to propose a “blanket amnesty” for the bandits, was that a suggestion meant only for the abductors of the Kagara school children or for all bandits? Because anyone may for the blanket amnesty proposal say that they are bandits.
- For proposing a blanket amnesty for the bandits, would the bandits by way of restitution return ransoms collected for the people they abducted? Can they be trusted to pay the diyyah (blood money) for the lives killed?
- If Sheikh Gumi will know the location of the bandits, wouldn’t he have disclosed that to security agencies so as to comb them? Or which will be better, flushing them or pardoning them by way of an amnesty.
- Since Sheikh Gumi proposes “blanket amnesty” for bandits, can he as well mention what their grievances / agitations are for government to look into?
- If Boko Haram and now bandits could have negotiators on their behalf, who should then negotiate for and on behalf of all Nigerians for good governance where everyone would reap and enjoy the dividends of democracy?
- Shouldn’t every Nigerian be given at least a modicum of regard or respect in their own country by the government, rather than pampering foreign/imported criminals who are enriching themselves at the expense of Nigerians?
- Have our military lost its might, bite and grit that instead of clamping down on the criminals, negotiating with them has now become the way out of stemming insecurity?
- Is crime now to be applauded whereas criminals to be rewarded?
These questions, amongst others, jolted me to transfer my thought to paper so that gleaning from them, one will see the precarious situation our country is in at the moment. And without sounding immodest or impervious, when the government does not rise to stem the tidal waves of insecurity by dealing ruthlessly with criminals, we may wake up one day with criminals negotiating for the soul and spirit of Nigeria.
In the final analysis, negotiation should not be a leeway to criminals; military combativeness and pro-activeness should be the match against the affront of criminals. These could be achieved when government does not play the ostrich in tackling insecurity or trivializing the enormity of it.
Barr Galadima wrote this from Kaduna and can be reached via: ybgalas@gmail.com (09081254041. Texts only)
