Banditry: My disappointments with PMB’s approach

Like many other weeks before it in the past several years, the past one week has been very tragic for the people of Jibia LGA. It was during this period that bandits sent a notice to the people of Jibia of an impending attack. Such notices are not unusual since banditry became the order in the North Western part of Nigeria. The criminals do normally not fail in their promises although it does not have to be on the day they mention. Thus, since Thursday the 10^th of June 2021, the people of Jibia town have known no sleep. I partly blame them because when banditry was restricted to the rural areas, most people in the local government headquarters did not give it a damn. Some of them who were fanatical in their support for Buhari even claimed out of mischief that we were only speaking to show the failure of his Government even though they could not deny our support for him throughout the period he was doing everything he could to get to the Presidency.

 The message here is, if you are reading this from the comfort of your room in the city or any other part of Nigeria and you think banditry is not your problem or that it is a problem already solved by PMB, I pray you never get disappointed.

 A day before bandits sent notice to Jibia, they killed two people near Bugaje. Their offence was that they were driving from Bugaje to Katsina in the early part of the night and their headlight hit a group of bandits coming on their motorcycles. This was seen as an act of contempt by the criminals and they opened fire on the people in the front seats of the firewood carrying van. The two of them died immediately and life continued. The blood of Nigerians is not any more sacred than the blood of mosquitoes these days. Many people in Bugaje ward are now moving their families to Katsina town for fear of molestation by bandits. Resist the rape of your wife and you lose your life and your wife is beaten up and raped anyway.

Two things happened to the Jibia town people on Sunday the 13^th. One. Three people travelling down south were kidnapped around Kankara and their abductors later called to ask for a ransom of N300m. Two. Due to their desire to go to farm and cultivate what they eat like they have been doing even before any politician came to advise them, four young people went to farm around Shabba village North west of Jibia town. Themselves and their two cows were later abducted from their farms and moved to the bush. Concerned community members later called in the Nigerien police who moved in swiftly to kill two and arrest one of the bandits. The abductees were freed to join their families. With many friends and relations in the Nigerian Army, Police and Air Force I cannot be against the Nigerian military. But they should not be angry if I say, and rightly too, that the local people around the border now have more confidence in the Nigerien military than they have in their Nigerian counterparts.

 What is happening in Jibia LGA is virtually what is happening in other frontline LGAs in Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, Kebbi, Niger and Sokoto state. In reality, worse things are happening in some other places. For example, in the past two weeks mass killings have taken place in Zamfara, Kebbi, Niger and Kaduna states. I only mention my local government to tell you that I am directly affected and this is not hearsay.

 But when will these things be over? I listened to Mr. President’s interview on Arise News and I have no doubt that Mr. President is sincere in his intention to bring an end to the security challenges bedeviling the North West and other parts of the country. I have no doubt, too, that Mr. President is doing everything he can to solve the problem of insecurity in the country.

As a teacher, I have come across many students who worked hard to answer an examination question and filled so many pages with their beautifully written answers only to score a zero at the end. There are usually two reasons for this. One. The student did not take time to read and understand the question before he begins to answer it. Two. He read and understood the question but he didn’t know the answer. However, since he has registered for the course and told examiners that he is qualified, he has to provide an answer even if it is the wrong one. This phenomenon manifests itself among politicians who campaign and win elections. The second analogy is that of an unqualified and incompetent politician.

 The first analogy is that of a very competent and experienced person like President Muhammadu Buhari who does not take his time to understand the problem and provide a solution based on current realities. Instead he only uses his experiences of the 1950s and 1960s to provide solutions to twenty first century problems.

 Mr. President seems to have the erroneous belief that the corrupt-free military of the 1960s or even 1984 is the same institution today. That is why after the Kankara students’ abduction of last year when he was asked for his reactions by the NTA, the first thing he did was to thank the Nigerian military. There was nowhere in that interview he mentioned Miyetti Allah group, who according to the Governors of Katsina and Zamfara were responsible for the freedom of those children.

Again in the Arise News interview he emphasized on his meeting with security chiefs, the marching order he gave them and the reports he received from them. And I ask, does Mr. President have no other way of knowing what is on the ground except through those security chiefs? As a politician, Mr. President has his party leaders and ardent supporters in every ward of the 774 local governments of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Is this structure not an alternative for the president to confirm what is on the ground and use it to surprise and issue orders and praise or rebuke his security chiefs?  His claims that bandits are being decimated in the North West and that people are now going to farm show that he is not getting the correct feedback. The example I gave on people abducted on their farms is only one of those incidences. There are villages I know where people are paying taxes to bandits to allow them to go farm and nothing is changing.

Now, does the President understand the identity of our bandits at all? Mr. President was in power four years before Zulum became the Governor but it was Zulum who told him that Boko Haram members are Nigerians. I thought even as he was campaigning for elections he had a very good idea of the identity of Boko Haram membership, how they started and where they were. Those pieces of information were necessary for him to “hit the ground running” as he promised in 2015.

 Now, coming to the herdsmen, he told Governor Ortom that the herdsmen operating in Benue are not Nigerians. Did PMB reflect over this statement? How did they come into Nigeria? Does Ortom have control over our borders? How many immigration officers were punished for allowing foreign herdsmen to cross our borders in large numbers and begin to destroy our farms? Again, MACBAN has been speaking for herdsmen in Benue. Doesn’t he think that the group should be investigated to verify whether or not they are directly involved in crime? Note that it was not only Ortom who once accused MACBAN of complicity in crime. An erstwhile Zamfara Commissioner of Police Nagogo once did it while you were sitting in the villa.

 Are those “foreign” herdsmen the same as bandits operating in the North West? I would disagree with Mr. President if he says yes. The leaders of bandits in the North West are well known to Government. At different points Katsina and Zamfara state Governments held meetings with them in open spaces and none of those criminal gang leaders came from Niger Republic or some other country. They were all Nigerians. Katsina state Governor, who said ab initio, that he was going into peace accord with them at the instance of PMB, has since withdrawn from the peace accord and claimed that the bandits had breached the terms of the agreement. Yet, none of them has been arrested up to this time I am writing.

 But I see. The President does not believe that those bandits are foreigners. In fact, if his statement is anything to go by, there is no banditry as we claim. It is “people with the same language and culture .. killing themselves, stealing each other’s properties.” Haba Mr. President! Please look for another means of getting your reports. You are vividly being misled by some mischievous aides. Banditry in the North West is real and it is not a communal clash. It is a section of an ethnic group unleashing mayhem on the rest of us.

 Another area of my disappointment is the attempt by the President to push blame on the Governors. If he does that for non-APC governors I can excuse him. But President Buhari should remember that ahead of 2015 elections he went round telling the electorate to vote APC candidates because he had a mechanism to make sure that they did the right thing. Now, that we are being killed, kidnapped, scared away from our farmlands and our dignity is being attacked, where should we shift our blame?

How Daura people are being misrepresented

 

This morning (09/12/2020) I was confronted by a video clip of a legislator from Katsina state. The young man, who may be in his thirties or forties depending on his body type is supposed to be representing Daura/Maiadua/Sandamu Federal constituency in the House of Representatives. By implication, this man is one of the two people representing President Muhammadu Buhari in the National assembly. Without doubt, like most of his types from the North, Fatuhu Muhammed rode on the back of Buhari to convince the unsuspecting people of Daura, Maiadua and Sandamu that he will support Buhari to change their lot.

The man, who unfortunately is a member of Committee on tertiary education in the house rose to ask his colleagues to agree to tell the executives to sell public universities and retain the Polytechnics. His reason is that “we are having so much problems with ASUU”. He did not elaborate on the word, “we”. Is he referring to the people of Daura, Maiadua and Sandamu, in which case we should ask him the method he used to determine their opinion? We know that ASUU had recently embarked on nationwide parleying with Nigerians at which it explained it’s position and listened to parents’ views as major stakeholders. How many parleys did Fatuhu hold with the masses of Daura, Sandamu and Maiadua to have arrived at this opinion?

Or did “we” in Fatuhu’s submission refer to the committee in which he is only an ordinary member? We shall then ask, where is the report of the committee which would show the homework it has made to arrive at this position? Why is he the one presenting it, when, like he acknowledged in his incoherent submission, the Committee chairman was present?

While reacting to the clip, a colleague from Daura noted that Fatuhu is a nephew of the President. If that is true, the rest of us may wish to know, does “we” refer to the extended Buhari family? We know that some of Buhari’s children were educated outside Nigeria even when he is sitting in the villa as an elected President. Is it the opinion of Mr. President that public universities in Nigeria be privatized so that the “edupreneurs” who buy them would make them as good as those attended by his children in the UK? PMB is a key stakeholder in Fatuhu’s constituency but he has only one vote.

What is the “so much problem” that the Fatuhus know about ASUU that the rest of Nigerians do not that led “them” to conclude that the “best solution” is to sell the universities? I know many Nigerians who criticize ASUU for one thing or another but none of them has spoken so strongly about “privatizing” public universities like Fatuhu did. I am sure that in addition to myself, other Nigerians would love to know this problem that can only be solved by selling our universities.

For any arising matter that requires the attention of lawmakers, I would like to note that there are three questions a member like Fatuhu would ask before taking a position.

The first question is, how will it affect my people? Did Fatuhu ask this question? Poverty is one factor that characterizes our life in the far North. Daura emirate is one of the worst hit places in terms of poverty, hunger and backwardness in formal education. For example,for many years people from other parts of Katsina state rush to rural local governments in Daura emirate to look for hajj seats as in most cases the people there cannot fill their quota of hajj seats due to the high level poverty. If Government closes down its primary and secondary schools in Katsina state, one can be rest assured that majority of our children, and especially those from rural local Governments like the ones Fatuhu is representing, will not go to school. Right now, many children from the North are at the mercy of their state governments to pay for their WAEC and NECO registration. Then, how can a person representing such people rise on the floor of the National Assembly and advocate for the commercialization of education? This is silliness at it’s peak.

The second question is, how has this problem been solved in similar climes? As a legislator has Fatuhu taken time to find out how Malaysia, for example, is able to run it’s public universities and make them among the best? Today, no one goes to a private university in Malaysia except those who are not academically good enough for public universities. Malaysian lecturers are among the happiest set of people in that country. Why are our politicians so lazy to simply read or travel in order to help their people?

For anything a person wants to say, whether or not such a person is a legislator, they would always ask, how will it be received by other people? Regrettably, Fatuhu is so inexperienced to even discuss with his colleagues a priori, which explained why many of them were shouting him down when he was saying it. Of course, there is nothing wrong in being controversial if one is sure of one’s position and has sufficient facts to support it. Unfortunately, the legislator did not prepare adequate arguments to back his position which explains why he immediately sat down the moment his colleagues began to boo him. Did he not ask his “we” of their reasons to believe that the problem of ASUU is so much that there should be no public university in Nigeria?

But who do you blame? Just Fatuhu? I blame the political parties who nominate and send people without preparing them. Although seminars and retreats are organized for legislators from time to time, the emphasis is usually not on the knowledge. Otherwise, we would not be having people like Fatuhu.

Fatuhu as an individual is not worth my pen. I don’t write to vilify individuals. My concern is for the poor people of Daura, Sandamu and Maiadua who are being misrepresented.

Is the North ready to end banditry and kidnapping?

 “Wadannan shuwagabanni mun yi zaben tumun dare. Kada Allah Ya maimaita mana irinsu nan gaba (We chose the wrong leaders. May Allah not give us a repeat of their type in future)”.

That was the last statement made by one of my relations in a telephone conversation I had with him on Friday 04/12/2020. The previous night Kahiyal, a village near theirs was attacked and three herds consisting of more than forty cows of what remained of their cattle were moved by bandits. That was the third time in five days the criminals struck in their area in Bugaje ward of Jibia local Government. In the second attack they moved seven cows and in the first they rustled a combination of cows, sheep and whatever they could find.

 What I didn’t ask my second nephew is whether he was aware that two weeks earlier in a place called Abuja some 600 kilometers away from their village a grey-haired Minister of Police affairs told Nigerians that bandits have been degraded. The emphasis on grey hair is because our Holy Prophet enjoined us to respect it. But in our society of today there are many grey-haired people who are not ashamed of lying, a thing hated most by the Holy Prophet. Examples of such people are many in the present dispensation.

But grey-hair or not, when shall these things come to an end? And who are these bandits? Are they Hausa, Yoruba, Ibo, Fulani or CAN? The problem of banditry in Northern Nigeria has defied solution because of the high level of hypocrisy involved in the discussions about the identity of this criminal type. When Governor Ortom called for the arrest of the leadership of Miyetti Allah kautel hore association, accusing them of being behind crimes in Benue state, he was unanimously condemned as an enemy of Islam by the Muslim North. However, much later when CP Nagogo of Zamfara state accused Miyetti Allah of complicity in bandits’ activities in Zamfara state, everybody kept quite. In fact, instead of going to court to challenge the Police commissioner, Miyetti Allah decided to close it’s Zamfara state chapter “until further notice”.

Again, when Governor Masari of Katsina state signed the peace accord with the bandits’ leaders operating in Katsina state, all of them were Fulani. In fact, he repeatedly used the term, “Fulanin daji” to describe the bandits. Few months later, Katsina state Government openly withdrew from the pact accusing the leaders of breaching the agreement. To date, none of the leaders has been arrested.

Furthermore, a cross-section of people kidnapped in the North West testified that their kidnappers are of Fulani extraction. The famous Qur’anic reciter Mallam Ahmad Sulaiman is one of such people.

Despite all these evidences that point directly to where the problem is, many Northerners still believe in the conspiracy theory that it is some Christians from somewhere who are responsible for the banditry and kidnapping currently consuming the North. Some would say CAN or some foreigners from Mali. Others will still mention Jonathan or Obasanjo. A colleague of mine was saying it is Boko Haram and when I disagreed with him he became angry.

With this kind of attitude, how can our problem be over? Can’t we face our problem and solve it once for all? Nobody would say all Fulani are criminals. The President himself is Fulani. At least that is what he claims even though Fulani extremists would not recognize him as such since he doesn’t speak Fulfulde. The Sultan is Fulani and most of the emirs are Fulani. Among our politicians, businessmen, academics, etc. are Fulfulde-speaking Fulani who are contributing positively to the economy of the great Nigerian nation. For Allah’s sake, why can’t all these people come together to address this problem? Why should we continue to deceive ourselves because of a blind group solidarity? If my own son, may Allah forbid, gets out of the way and rob innocent people of their lives and property and attack their dignity, what is wrong in handing him over to face the law? Is it after all of us are dead that we remember this?

When I read the statement accredited to the Sultan lamenting the security situation in the North, I was disappointed. Was the Sultan not playing to the gallery? Is he not one of the patrons of Miyetti Allah? What did he do when the Fulani organization was being accused of complicity in crime? Did he disown it or did he investigate and found out that it was false? And by the way, why did he not meet Mr. President, a fellow Fulani for a frank discussion on this problem?

Let me ask. If we continue to blindly defend this Government despite the continuous deterioration of our security situation, what right do we have to complain if tomorrow a Southerner takes over and decides to abandon us even further? Is it not better to talk to ourselves and take the right action when our own is in charge?

Finally, what is preventing Mr. President from taking action? Those of us who are victims know that the medicine being applied is not the right one for the ailment. The president knows what to do. That he is not doing it is most unfortunate.

Banditry: Stakeholders are not helping matters

 

The rural areas of Katsina state are still the killing field that they have been for the past several years. For Jibia and Batsari LGAs where I have been following, bandit attacks are almost a daily occurrence; while you are grieving with the attack on one village you are very likely to hear about the killing/abduction in another rural settlement.

One of the most painful things about these criminalities is the reaction of different stakeholders to the plight of ordinary people in our villages.

First, since majority of the victims in those areas are Muslims it behooves the leaders of the Muslim Ummah to take necessary actions in terms of assistance for the victims and mounting pressure on Government to do the needful to end banditry and bring perpetrators to book. We know how CAN reacts whenever its leadership feels that a single Christian is being victimized anywhere in Nigeria. However, the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (SCIA) which is the officially-recognized leadership of the Nigerian Muslim Ummah is vividly absent in the areas where these heinous crimes are taking place. My interaction with some of those close to emirs who, led by the Sultan constitute the membership of the council reveals that they are not even looking in that direction. Their main concern is to have a role spelt out in the Constitution. That, of course, will be attracting FAAC monthly allocation to them.

Another set of stakeholders are Islamic scholars. Some weeks ago I replied a group of Islamic scholars who released a long list of recommendations on how to go about ending banditry in the Northwest. Anyone who examined their writeup will understand that they were mainly concerned about ‘saying something’ on the issue even without adequate preparation. For such a big group of scholars to come up with a position on such a big issue, one would expect them to carry out a first hand assessment of the situation on the ground and to tell the world what they have done and intend to do/ be doing to bring an end to the problem and assist the victims. That is why some of them dismiss our accounts as hearsay, obviously because either they are not in touch with the grassroots or they don’t want to be seen criticizing Government.

Politicians are not helping matters on the issue. The actions of most of them are such as to deceive locals and make them appear the better candidates for the next election. Only yesterday I heard a song (Rarara style) praising a local reps member and telling the electorate that the ‘honourable’ is opposed to the criminalities taking place in his constituency and that something must be done. We know very well that the target audience of such songs are the gullible masses and they have no effect on decision makers. Apart from the instances in which Governor Masari himself admitted that their Government has failed, the utterances of Katsina state Government officials is such as to dodge blames and shift it elsewhere, most a times to the victims.

Press coverage of the criminal activities taking place in Katsina and Zamfara is far below expectation. I have never expected the anti-Islamic, anti-North press of the South to do justice in reporting matters affecting the far North. In this case I m talking about the so-called Northern press. I have not come across any news outfit that takes the pain of continuously following and reporting events as they happen in deep areas of Katsina and Zamfara states. Most of them reproduce the information given to them by the Military and Police without going further to see the situation on the ground in order to expose the truth or otherwise of the Government version of events.

The problem with the rest of us is that we don’t even know that we are contributing in our own ways to the ordeal of those villagers. For example, last week there was a widespread riot by villagers in Jibia LGA. It took place following continuous attacks on their communities by criminals. The rioters in their hundreds blocked Katsina – Jibia highway and in addition to setting bonfires smashed windscreens of any passing vehicle whether or not it belongs to Government. Many people condemned what they did but I did not. My reason is simple. The villagers acted in accordance with their level of awareness and in response to being abandoned by the rest of us. That we are in Government or not does not matter.

How can you claim to be innocent when your neighbors in a community less than ten kilometers away are killed or kidnapped, robbed of their property and their women violated without you taking any step to show sympathy for them? How can you prove to those people that you are not part of their problem when you appear well fed and driving an expensive car while they cannot sleep with their eyes closed? The question I asked most of the people who condemned their approach was why they did not join the rioters to guide them on the so-called civilized way of organizing protests.

Worse still, after the riots that culminated in the burning down of a building temporarily used by Police, Policemen picked more than forty  young people from their homes and on the streets of Daddara,  paraded them before the press and claimed that those are people “sponsored by smugglers” to burn down property belonging to Joint border patrol team. The police PRO who made the claim is yet to parade the sponsoring smugglers to prove to Nigerians that he is not a liar. And the rest of us are silent because the people arrested are not members of our families.

The riots that took place last week point to another imminent problem. When the villagers continue to be pushed to the extreme, they may form other groups more hardened and more violent than the Fulani herdsmen. It is unfortunate that both the Government and Nigerian Police cannot see this.

Jibia: Why PMB should call Hameed Ali to order

Perhaps no Nigerian President has suffered to get to the number one seat of power like Muhammadu Buhari, the incumbent president. He campaigned and supposedly won. He was rigged out. He did that again and again and again. After his fourth attempt he won. As a Muslim, Buhari himself knows that Allah’s time is the best. He also knows that throughout his several attempts to get it, there were individuals, groups and communities that remained solidly behind him. He acknowledged the roles of individuals when he was justifying some of his appointments. And he was right. Even if there are (and surely there are plenty) people who are better than Babachir, Mustapha, Adamu, Malami, etc. they qualify to get political appointments because they remained with him throughout the period of his struggle. This is because in the art of Governance what is required is a minimum acceptable competence and an unquestionable loyalty which the Boss Mustaphas had for Mr. President.

But perhaps what Mr. President is yet to realize, or at least his actions have not acknowledged is the love and support some communities have shown to him since he joined politics. Jibia in Katsina state is one of such communities. In case Mr. President has forgotten, Jibia had been next only to Daura in supporting him and fighting against the PDP rigging machine throughout the period of his several attempts to get to the presidency. Many of our young people were arrested, tortured and incarcerated by PDP governments when they stood to fight against election rigging in those periods.

Despite all their contributions to the success of PMB, the first reward Jibia people got was the ban on sale of fuel to border communities. This effectively excised Jibia out of their own country as people began to have to travel the distance of 42 kilometers to Katsina to fill the tanks of their vehicles. Those who tried to bring a gallon of petrol from Katsina or Batsari for use in their generators were treated as smugglers and had their gallons confiscated in case they could not give a bribe that could be more than double the price of the gallon they were carrying. As the number of checkpoints from Katsina to Jibia continued to swell from the original seventeen before border closure, the ordeal of Jibia people is better imagined.

Now as if the hardship caused by the closure of their filling stations is not enough, the Comptroller-General of Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) decided to use his office to further punish the people of Jibia for reasons best known to him. For those who know the area very well, there is a big customs barracks and a border post in Magamar Jibia at which there are offices of NCS, NIS and others in charge of movements of people and goods between Nigeria and its neighbours. In addition to the Magama border post, those agencies have their men stationed on identified auxiliary routes along the border. Jibia community has no problem with any of these arrangements. We believe they are meant to ensure that evil people and their goods do not cross the border into our country. Whether or not that is being achieved is a discussion for another day.

Our problem is with the decision of the President’s right hand man, Col. Hameed Ali to ban the entry of Nigerian made goods into Jibia local Government, particularly Jibia town. For the past two months, additional checkpoints have been introduced including one at the point of entry into Jibia town, with the sole purpose of stopping any vehicle carrying goods into Jibia from any part of Nigeria.

The pretext used by the NCS high command is that whatever good enters Jibia town it will be smuggled into Niger Republic. This is faulty for two reasons. One.  Jibia is a Nigerian community of a population of more than a quarter million people. Like any other human community the people need food and other essentials of life which they are being deprived by shutting them out of both the country to which they supposedly belong and the neighbouring country with which they have strong cultural and historical links. Two. The border inlet/outlet routes mentioned earlier are well-known and manned by officials of NCS. If it is suspected that the security on those points is not enough, it is only logical that the patrol teams be reinforced instead punishing a law-abiding community that worked hard to see to the electoral success of Mr. President.

To make matters worse, the NCS high command is said to be working with some members of the opposition who are feeding it with very wrong information to make it move against Jibia people in order to spoil the image of Mr. President and his party. Col. Hameed Ali being a non-political actor has not come to terms with this and he and his team think they are being smart enough by using informants from the inside of Jibia community to give them intelligence information while in reality they are working with people who have the sole intent of destroying PMB’s government. Some of those ‘informants’ are said to report to the NCS headquarters any Customs officer who refuses to harass traders carrying foodstuff like maize and other essentials into Jibia township. If Col. Hameed Ali is not aware of all these, it is unfortunate. But this is an opportunity for him to be aware.

To sum it up, Jibia people are under siege. Only a few days ago Governor Masari told state house correspondents that nine local governments in Katsina state, including Jibia LGA, are controlled by bandits. What one would expect is that the Government will use it’s full force to rescue those local governments instead of subjecting their law-abiding citizens to avoidable hardships. As I am writing this piece, the prices of Nigerian made food and essential items have multiplied in Jibia LGA due to the draconian siege of the Nigerian Customs Service high command.

On a final note, I would like to remind Mr. President that power is transient. He now has the opportunity to make up for the damages done to the people who supported him to power. He should be reminded that APC is only in power in Katsina state because of him. Despite their long support for his Government, Jibia people are not asking for special projects or political appointments at the centre which some traditionally-PDP LGAs have gotten under him. We are saying please leave us alone. Call your men to order to stop harassing us so that we can live like human beings. Secure our rural areas so that we can go to farm.

Mr. President, can you hear me?

Katsina bombing: More questions than answers

In September 2019 after series of renewed attacks by bandits in local government areas adjacent to Zamfara state, the Government of Katsina State on the instruction of President Buhari engaged the criminals who are mainly of Fulani extraction in peace talks. Many of us who are victims of their violence opposed the decision of both the state and Federal Governments for reasons widely discussed. The peace agreement meetings took place in different locations and in front of press cameras inside or near the forest from which most of the bandits operate.

 The bandit leaders who sealed those agreements with Katsina State Governor are well known. Some of them are Saleh Dangote, Abdulazeez Magware, Dan Karami, Dogo Gide, among others. The implication of the agreement is that the Government knows their capabilities and locations. They also know the numerical strengths of their bands, for as the Secretary to the state Government put it much later, “some of them have up to 300 men under them”. In other words, Katsina state Government did not go into peace agreement with the criminals without adequate intelligence on them.

 In May 2020, after continuous breaches of the agreement by the bandits, the State Government publicly withdrew from the agreement with all the bandits and promised not to sit and discuss with any of them. While declaring the end of his agreement with the bandits, Governor Masari described them as “worse than wild animals”. He added, “What we see here is that the bandits come to town, spray bullets, kill indiscriminately for no purpose and no reasons. How can a human being behave the way that an animal cannot even behave? That is why I say that they are worse than the animals in the forest. For me, there are no longer innocent persons in the forests”.

 About the time Masari was ending peace accord with the marauding criminals, the Federal Government said it was sending its specialized Air and Ground operatives to fight bandits in Katsina. And it did. The people in the frontline local government areas immediately saw the number of soldiers and their armoured vehicles that they never witnessed before. In the air over their communities hovered military aircrafts that even the elderly among them did not see earlier in their lives. Later, the Chief of Army staff himself moved to Katsina to lead the fight.

 With the intelligence about bandits the State Government had, many people thought that sweeping them off by the military was a matter of bread and butter. They were disappointed. As I m writing this, almost two months after the military operations started, none of the bandit kingpins mentioned above has been killed or arrested. Again, the only camps destroyed were those they had already abandoned.

 But has the presence of the Army Chief, his officers and men, Police and their Air colleagues deterred the criminals from their attacks on the communities? The answer is No. The attacks continued and they were many and devastating, with Batsari LGA being the worst hit. Faskari, Kankara, Jibia and other local Governments had their own share of those attacks.

 

Here, one would be tempted to ask, does the military truly want to end this violence? Many people would want to say no, for strong reasons. For example, the Army Chief was in Katsina when a prominent businessman/politician accused the state of Government of giving the General a ‘cash gift’ of N250m in addition to other unaccounted hundreds of millions said to be given to other security outfits including Police and DSS. Neither General Brutai nor the Army high command responded to the allegation, suggesting that there may be some truth in the claim.

 Now, if not for the insecurity ravaging the state, what would make the state Government give even one percent of what was allegedly given to those agencies and/or their chiefs? If the violence is ended, where would they get extra money out of their salaries and allowances?  Assuming the money said to be given to the security chiefs were not even given to them but stolen by state government officials, what would have made that happen if there were no insecurity? Again even if the claim of the businessman were not true in the first place, what would have made him lie if not the insecurity in the state?

 And as people were watching events unfold, one Major General John Enenche of Defence headquarters claimed to the astonishment of all of us that Boko Haram was migrating to the Northwest “with more sophisticated weapons to flee military onslaught in the Northeast which they have terrorized for over a decade”. The first question I asked is where the military was when those people are migrating across the country to the Northwest if at all that is true. Are our intelligence agencies on leave? To which location in the Northwest are they relocating? Or is this a strategy to prolong the solution to the crisis in the Northwest?

 Everyone knows that the bandits who operate in the Northwest and parts of North Central are not the same as Boko Haram in their ideology and methods. While Boko Haram claims to be fighting to establish an Islamic state and even chant Islamic slogans when they launch attacks, the bandits in the Northwest are completely ignorant of Religion, do not claim it and have no ideology but stealing, killing, maiming, raping and destruction. They were never reported, even once, to chant any religious slogan while attacking their victims.

 When Boko Haram started over a decade ago, their primary targets were military and Police and their structures. The bandits in the Northwest, on the other hand, started as cattle rustlers because most of them were said to be Fulani herders who no longer own cattle.

 The methods used for attacks by the bandits are rifles and machetes whereas Boko Haram use bombs and rifles. A Boko Haram fighter can carry out a suicide bombing because they have been made to believe it would take them to heaven while bandits in the Northwest run for their lives in the presence of superior fire power.

 The two criminal types are therefore different.  I always disagree with armchair analysts who sit in their rooms and draw conclusions that the Boko Haram operating in the Northeast are the same bandits in the Northwest. But here is our defence headquarters giving it another dimension.

 On Saturday July 18 a bomb was planted in the farm of one Alhaji Hussaini Maikwai around ‘Yarmama in Malumfashi Local government area of Katsina state. It killed five children and injured six.  “Boko Haram is in Katsina”, a Facebook friend wrote. While laughing at his naivety I added, “And they have integrated with the bandits”.  Is that what we are expected to believe? Haba!

 But even as we continue to ask other questions, the big one is, where is Mr. President, the last hope of the common man when all these are taking place? Is he overwhelmed and cannot do anything about all these things that do not add up? Why must he continue to retain lieutenants that cannot perform? Is it possible that it is his detractors using his state to show that he is incapable? Why can’t he at least launch an investigation? OMG!

Release of Katsina bandits: why the Chief Judge should come clean

It was an evening of 1987 and I stood alone at Kabuga junction on my way to Bayero University new campus (New site as it has always been called). The number of students living on that campus then was very small as there were only two faculties and a department housed there. There was a single male hostel and female students in the Faculty of Law and Department of Mass communication who wanted to live on campus had to stay in the old campus and transport themselves every morning to the new site. There was no female student in my own Faculty of Technology. In sum, there were not so many students running up and down between the two campuses as we have it now.

Thus students like me who went to town and could not catch the last bus from the old campus had to come to Kabuga and join the Rimin Gado bus to alight at the new site. Janguza and Rijiyar zaki were not popular at the time and Jan bulo was just a set of some isolated red houses on one side of the road. As I waited patiently for a bus, a car stopped and the man inside bent his head enough to look at my face and ask me where I was going. I told him and he asked me to come it. There was no fear of kidnapping at that time and every person seemed to trust every other person. I thus entered the car. I was twenty years old and the man inside must be either in his late twenties or early thirties, I thought after looking at him very well.

The journey to the new site did not take long as there was no traffic as we have it now. During that time he asked me where I came from and what I was studying. He asked a few other questions I cannot remember now. On arrival at the BUK main gate he introduced himself as Musa Danladi. He lived in Funtua, he told me. He then gave me five Naira and his card. “You can see me when you have any problem” he said. I thanked him and he drove off to Funtua as I struggled to reach the hostel from the main gate.

I examined his card. His full name was Musa Danladi Abubakar. He worked in the court as a Registrar. I then thought over his two offers. Five Naira was not a large sum of money but it was not too small for a student. Five Naira could buy for me five square meals in a student standard restaurant. It could also pay for ten taxi drops in Kano. A taxi fare was between 40 and 50 Kobo then. But what kind of problem could I see him for? The concern of a student in most cases is the little money that will keep him going. But I could not see anyone on that except my parents. If I could avoid a wealthy uncle so as not to be mistaken for a beggar how can I go to an unknown person to request for a financial favour?

Later someone told me that a court staff could also assist you when you are in trouble. But many years later after a very unpleasant experience of a friend of mine who signed as a bank account referee for an unknown person I resolved to, insha Allah never take anyone to court or even a Police station unless it is absolutely necessary. It doesn’t matter whether the court is a Shariah court or an unIslamic one. On reaching the hostel I told the story to my friend who was from Bakori. “Musa Danladi is very popular in Funtua. He is a very nice person”, he said.

That was the end of my story with my new found senior friend. I was not from Funtua area in which case I could pay a visit to greet him and I did not take up an appointment with Katsina state civil service after my graduation in which case we might have had some accidental meetings, at least. The next time I set Musa Danladi in my eyes was nineteen years later.

In 2006 I accompanied a friend to see a very senior member of Governor Yaradua’s administration in Katsina. With him we met two other persons who were not part of the discussion that took us there and so there was no need to introduce them. After we came out my friend told me that the two other people were a relation of the Governor’s wife and Justice Musa Danladi. My mind immediately went back to the ‘lift’ I got from Kabuga to new site nearly two decades before. It was exactly him, I thought. He must have forgotten that moment but I did not. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said it all. Hearts have been created to like those who are kind to them and dislike those who are unkind to them. I still liked Justice Danladi for that little kindness in our only meeting in the lives of both of us.

Things have drastically changed since then. The trust that characterized our relationship in this part of the country especially in Katsina state is gone. The story is that of killings and disappointments. One of those people who disappointed me most in the whole saga is Mr. President himself. It was because of Buhari, for example, that I decided to obtain permanent voters cards for myself and my family after my long term decision not to take part in voting. One of those things we liked and elected Buhari for was the security of our lives and property. As at 2015 when he won election the number of bandits in Katsina state was so small that they could be arrested by local Police. But both he and his Governor who won election on the goodwill of the masses turned a blind eye and allowed it to become what it is today.

Our disappointment reached its peak last year when Governor Masari told Nigerians that it was Mr. President who asked him to negotiate with the criminals. May Allah save this country. So who else could be trusted? Is it the executive arm of Katsina state Government under Masari or the judiciary now being led by my own Musa Danladi?

It thus did not come to me as a surprise when a friend of mine told me some weeks ago that the criminals who kidnapped Mallam Ahmad Sulaiman last year have been released. The details of their release however came later. It was based on a forged bail document signed by the Katsina state Chief Judge. Haba! How can a very experienced person like Justice Danladi not be able to distinguish between a genuine and a forged document? Will he be able to convict anyone tomorrow for signing a similar document? Those were my thoughts. But another untold reason might be a high pressure from above. There are unconfirmed rumours that some of the leaders of the bandits who signed the peace deal with Katsina state Government have a direct contact with Abuja. Could it be an instruction from Abuja to the Chief Judge to sign the document but he was only being smarter than the Governor by not announcing it? Allah knows best.

I, however, kept listening and reading comments from people. So far, as far as I know, no one has pointed an accusing finger at the Chief Judge. People have incredible confidence in him due to his track record of honesty and trust. Mistakes are human and everyone both within and outside Katsina state believes that the signing of that document by Justice Abubakar is a mistake. And he has acted swiftly too by setting up a committee of investigation. My candid advice to the Chief Judge and indeed Katsina state Governor is that maximum punishment should be meted on the culprits. This is even more so as it has been reported that the released criminals have committed other very serious acts of crime after their release.