Nothing should happen to the Kebbi young man

Thursday, the 12^th of March 2020 could have passed like any other day in my life except for some social media posts that I saw in the very early hours of the day. There was a bandits’ attack in Magama-Jibia the previous night. Magama was a village five kilometers out of Jibia before Jibia town expanded and made it a suburb. It is also a place where Nigeria-Niger border post is located. There is a big customs barracks in Magama that has proven to be of no use to the people since the current banditry started.

The news of bandits’ attack made me to make very early morning calls to relatives and friends living in both Magama and Jibia main town. After a few calls, I came to realize that the bandits’ attacks were still on in other villages around Jibia. At the end of it all, eight people were killed in Tsamben tsauni in addition to the one killed in Kwari and another in Kaga. But Police and Army? They, just like the state Governor, were informed in the very early hours of the night when the bandits were seen coming on their motorcycles, according to my reliable sources. But no help came until it was over. In fact, it was said that some very few soldiers on the ground went into hiding in Magama when the mayhem was taking place, obviously because they were outnumbered by the heavily armed bandits who came in their tens.

That was the situation I found myself on Thursday. Due to my parental background, there is no ward in Jibia LGA where I do not have a relation, near or far, an acquaintance or a friend. So I have every reason to be worried when such attacks take place. Fulani banditry has claimed lives and property of some of my closest relations since it started. Some of my female relations in the rural areas were raped in past attacks. I thus spent the rest of the day commiserating with myself and my people.

In the evening I switched on to view the news on my television set. My main interest was to know what is happening about the ongoing ASUU strike in which I am participating. The NTA news is no news as it mainly tells you about the Government of the day. The President was shown making a speech at one festival in Kebbi in which I had no interest. He was raising his voice in order to be heard and you would not expect me to make sense out of what he was saying, at least given the happenings in my local government in the day. Ten people would be murdered in a nation and the president is vividly unaware much less send any condolences. That is the very low level to which Nigeria has descended under this Government. Yet, as a Northerner I am expected to continue to blindly give my support.

This morning when I switched the data of my handphone the first thing I saw was a clarification from Femi Adesina on some ‘contorsionists’ who are passing a video clip on social media to give an impression that the President was attacked in Kebbi. I know contorsionist is a player of some sort. But I checked the dictionary on my handphone to make sure. It says, “an acrobat able to twist into unusual positions”. I was not satisfied. I then googled the word. I saw the same meaning. I now dropped the phone and picked my old Oxford dictionary. Okay, there is a figurative meaning. ‘We had to go through all the usual contortions to get a ticket (= a difficult series of actions)’. This means the people Femi Adesina was referring to must have suffered a little to arrive at a conclusion that the action of the said young man was an attempt to attack the President.

I now decided to check other sources to know what happened. I know if no one else, the opposition will look for that video and paste it on Facebook. But just as I was going through my Facebook posts I saw a comment by one Aminu Bello who claimed he was there when it happened. He said, “The man tried to fish out then-Gov Adamu Aleiro and now Senator of Kebbi Central. When asked, the man said thief can’t be close to the Mr. President before him….”. I said this man loves the President but he is giving a different explanation which he claimed is an eye-witness one. However, when I saw the video there was no question and answer session which would have confirmed who, between Adesina and Bello was telling the truth.

My greatest shock came when I read in the Daily Trust newspaper that the man was shot in the foot. From the footage I saw, there was no sound of gunshot. So, what could have happened? Does it mean that this man was later shot after he was removed from the scene and the Daily Trust story sponsored so that when his death is announced later we would be told that he died from the gunshot he received?

My advice to Mr. President is that he should personally investigate this matter and come clean on it. Even if this young man attempted to attack him, he does not deserve death as long as the attack did not take place. He should remember that Kebbi, just like other Northern states is one of the states that was 100 per cent behind him. If it has now reached a level that his people are booing him and even attempting to attack him, all he has to do is looking inwards and correcting his mistakes.

Mr. President should understand that people are not happy with the level of carnage taking place under the watch of a man many of them loved even more than they loved themselves. People are not happy about the level of hunger in the land. Dead people cannot go to farm. So the campaign of his Government about farming does not make sense to his people in rural areas. Or are we no longer his people?