Opinion
Truce With Terrorists, Toast To Atrocities
The attrocities of criminal bandits across northern Nigeria have lasted for too long to be pampered any longer”.
Some northern elders have cautioned the federal government against moves that suggest that President Ahmed Tinubu is considering reconciliation with notorious bandits, especially, Bello Turji and his gangs, who are reportedly alleged to have inflicted so much atrocities on many communities in the North-West and North-Central regions of Nigeria. Earlier, a video of the notorious bandit kingpin, Bello Turji, had appeared on social media, calling for reconcilliation, when the previous day, same Turji was seen accusing some communities of killing particular tribe and their livestocks, and threatening retaliations for the killings, and that this season, “You will not harvest your farms. If you dare to, you will die. No farming this time around.”
Speaking in a statement under the aegis of the Arewa Elders Progressive Group, the North-west chairman of the group, Alhaji Mustafa Dutsinma, warned that falling for the antics of those who pretend to be ready for reconciliation when it suits them to do so, would “undermine government’s efforts at combating banditry.” Such moves only end up in boosting the morale of lawless elements who see themselves as parallel authorities. The Zamfara State Government in 2019, under the leadership of former Governor Bello Matawalle, the current Minister of State for Defence, negotiated and signed a peace agreement with bandits, but the pact failed as bandits reverted to their games. Similar attempts have also failed in other regions.
The instability in the north has metamorphosed into organised, heinous criminality, from years of tribal conflicts over land resources between pastoral Fulanis on one hand, and several other tribes across the vast swathes of the North-West, North-East and North-Central, and have trailed the paths of herders as they led their merchandise of herds further south of Nigeria. The complexity and terror in the conflicts intensify and change almost continuously, in campaigns that have drawn-in cross-border militia, and masked the boundries between religious ideologies, politics of domination and sheer tribalism, with recriminations from both sides leading to arms running, banditry, livestock rustling, arsons, abductions, kidnappings and ransome racketeering, and the near collapse of Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
While tackling these conflicts has become intractable and a huge burden on the federal, state and local governments, one of the currently most notorious and dreaded figures behind the mayhems in the North-West and North-Central terrains, is Bello Turji reportedly known to have deftly engaged communities and the military in shrewd gamesmanship. In a span of one year alone in Zamfara, the epicenter of recent onslaughts in the north, between July, 2023 and June, 2024, about 1,639 victims have been abducted in 132 cases. Many traditional heads across the North have also fallen victims of terror, alongside so many unaccountable others. To count just a few, this year in March, Garba Badamosi, the village head of Rirvwai in Lame district of Toro LGA in Bauchi was killed.
In June, the chief of Gidan Usman village, Auwal Wali, was also killed at his residence in Karim Lamido LGA of Taraba, while in July, the traditional ruler of Chanchanji in Takum LGA of Taraba State, KumbiyaTanimu, and his son were killed while returning from a funeral. The most heart-breaking of all yet, was that of the Emir of Gobir in Gawata town of Sokoto State, Isah Bawa, who was tied-up and paraded in a viral video in August while pleading with government to pay the ransom for his release, but was later killed after three weeks in captivity, without releasing his corpse for burial. It was on this backdrop of heavy heart that soldiers from the Nigerian Army 1 Brigade in Gusau, stationed at Zurmi LGA of Zamfara State, acting on intelligence that a large number and different camps of bandits, comprising those of Bello Turji, Sani Black, Na Dutsen Kura, Dan Dogo, Nasanda, and Dankarami, were attending a meeting in a forest in the Kwashabawa area of the LGA, decided to lunch an offensive on Thursday, August 29, 2024.
Unfortunately, either by bad weather due heavy rains, a compromise, poor inter-military agencies co-ordination, or sheer bad fortune, the operation failed, with the army being forced to abandon two pricely Mines Resistant Armoured Personnel (MRAP) vehicles, stuck in a water-logged terrain. Those MRAPs, worth between $0.5m and $1.0m each, were the equipment captured, celebrated and burnt on Saturday August 31, 2024, by Bello Turji and his comrades in arms. That same day, bandits rounded-up travellers in mass abductions in the state. An eye witness posted on social media that, “A few hours ago, bandits blocked the Damri to Bakura road in Zamfara State, abducting all passengers from two fully loaded vehicles. It’s alarming that terrorists can put a blockade on a road in broad daylight without any fear.
The northwest region of Nigeria has become a web of terror,” all which may have prompted the Presidency, penultimate Sunday, being September 1, 2024, to issue matching orders to Nigeria’s Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, to immediately relocate to Sokoto State with the military chiefs, to flush out rampaging bandits ravaging the country’s North. With the renewed military momentum now against bandits across the north, the suden reconciliatory tone of the likes of Turji is provocative and should not be entertained. The attrocities of criminal bandits across northern Nigeria have lasted for too long to be pampered any longer, with so many sheded innocent blood crying out for justice, mineral resources plundered and communities enslaved or displaced, while our national agriculture is laid desolate, to wit hunger and desperation have become the other of the day.
It therefore serves Nigeria’s national interests better that criminals are taken head-on, subdued, rounded-up and brought to justice, to restore confidence in our nationhood. Besides, the capture and burning of prime military equipment for whatever excuse, is a national humiliation of which the military needs to assuage.The failure of inter-military agency co-ordination that led to the military humiliation at Zurmi LGA, rather than a successful offensive that would have reduced insecurity on the Zamfara axis, should be investigated with a view at achieving better synergy between the Army and the Air Force especially, coupled with other agencies.The federal government may also consider applying the wisdom of ancient cities in the cordoning-off of cities with walls against foreign intrusions. Gaint walls along Nigeria’s borders, with eyelets of tightly controlled passages, would help ward-off cross-border militias who are alleged to invade Nigerian communities in fraternal responses to tribal conflicts.
In the mean time, the matching orders of Mr President to the military establishments to the effect that criminal elements operating across the north, and in deed everywhere else in the country, be wiped out, should be sacrosact and conclusively a done deal, without any rooms for negotiations. Any slack in the fight against criminality would only grant dangerous time to the bandits to recuperate, reorganise and reinvent their evil antics.
Joseph Nwankwor
Quote:”Communities have rights to peace, safety, and quality of life. Noise pollution, crowds, or other impacts from religious activities can affect these rights. Balancing these interests requires consideration and dialogue”.
“All work and no play”, its said, “makes Jack a dull boy.” Despite this age-long maxim that recognises the role of play in early childhood development, play appears to be eluding many Nigerian kids. The deprivation of play opportunities comes in different forms for the Nigerian child depending on family’s social setting or status, but the effect is much the same. For children in Nigerian poor families, life is becoming as much a hassle as it is for their struggling parents. Due to harsh economic conditions, many families resort to engaging their kids prematurely in trading activities especially in hawking, to help boost family revenues, when these kids should be enjoying leisure after school. Some of these children barely attend schools while being forced to spend much of their childhood hustling in the streets. For children from well-off families, time could be as crunchy as it is for their busy parents when, obsessed with setting agenda for the future of their kids, parents arrange stringent educational regiment too early for their kids.
These group of children are made to get-off the bed by 5.30am every weekday, get ready for private school buses that call at 6.00am, otherwise report by however means to school at 7.20am.The situation is worse for kids in the city of Lagos where the need to beat urban traffic rush-hours is very high. Most children are further subjected to extra hours of lessons after school at 2.00pm, only to be released with loads of homework. On many occasions children who leave home for school at 6.30am get back by 3.30pm. With hardly enough time to eat, do school assignments and take afternoon naps, these children hardly had time for plays before dinners. In Nigeria, kids of ages between 3 and 12 spend averages of 9 hours a day and 45 hours a week to and from schools, and additional hours doing home assignments and domestic jobs, whereas their peers in developed countries spend about half that duration and have more time for leisure.
Any remaining spare time left after school work or street hustle is further stolen, when kids who usually are fascinated by gadgets, are exposed to household electronics like phones, tablets and gaming consoles. Electronic games may create a sense of leisure, but the difference with human interactions is that kids doing games interface mostly with machines or with programme structured in ways that entrap a child’s pysch directionally, according to the game’s programming, in ways that may not encourage independent thinking. Moreso, attraction to such gadgets displaces kids’ attention from important television and radio programmes. The prevalent tight, academic schedules for some Nigerian kids, though intended for academic excellence, encroaches on childhood leisure time needed to achieve an all-round childhood development, and could make children to resent formal education altogether. Besides, academic excellence or economic pursuit, is not all there is to living a well-nurtured life.
Children’s leisure time, defined as time left over after sleeping, eating, personal hygiene and attending school or day-care, is very crucial to childhood development. Sociologists recommend that children should have at least 40 per ceny of the day as leisure. According to Berry Brazelton, a former pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about him or herself.” Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate their relationships with their peers, and in the process build self-confidence and self-control. Play is one of the important ways in which young children gain essential knowledge and skills. Leisure time enhances learning as fun enables children to learn at their own level and pace. Young children naturally explore and learn many skills by making cognitive connections from events that catch their attention.
Unstructured plays help children developed their cognitive, physical and communication skills that make them acquire social qualities necessary in navigating relationships in adult life. Plays enable children assess how others feel and learn perspectives as well as empathy through observing differences in facial expressions, body language and even tone of voice, which helps them copy how to express themselves to others, and therefore develop socially acceptable behavours that build relationships. In cooperative activities, children willingly take things in turn and may delegate roles. Children can also share the glory of winnings through competitive games, which is all great for working together in task sharing. Aside encouraging parents to ensure adequate leisure time for their kids at home, schools should make plays and exercises an integral part of the educational curriculum. The educational curriculum set by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) includes specific training durations and break periods, as well as sporting activities, as part of the school system.
Due to poor government funding, sports in public schools have declined, while most private schools lack sporting infrastructure or even play grounds. These make recreational activities and sports implementation almost impossible in schools. Also, the increasing rate of urbanisation in Nigerian communities is gradually eroding ancient playgrounds, while established urban centres have lost community playgrounds. With tightening apartment spaces now being the norm in most urban residential areas, many kids are forced to wriggle within burglary-proof enclosures. Nigerian governments and the relevant agencies should ensure that existing child labour protection laws, educational and urban development codes are implemented in the country, to enable proper nurturing of children as the future stakeholders of our society. Private schools, especially, should be supervised to ensure they follow the educational curriculum standards set by NERDC.
In a bid to impress parents and draw more patronage as better option than public schools, private schools, most of whom operate in cramped environments, have continued to set high regiments of training schedules beyond the capacity of most kids, and even encourage enrollment of pre-school age kids who can not sit still to listen for an extended periods of time. Schools, from creche to secondary levels, without playgrounds and recreational facilities should not be allowed to operate, and should be made to understand and implement appropriate curriculum and training durations. Many Nigerian kids, whether from rich or poor families, appear to have been set-up inadvertently, in the same leisure denial that affects their parents. All work and no play could lead to some messed-up kids who grow up not understanding social cues, and being unemotional and self-centered, manifest later as obsessive-compulsive adults.
By: Joseph Nwankwo
We thank God who is above all human contrivance and arrogance. Congratulations, Your Excellency Amaopusenibo Sir Siminalayi Joseph Fubara. Your victory takes us back to the Bible as a living document of a God that rules in the affairs of all His creation. In a manner of speaking, welcome back from your first war with Phillistines, Your Excellency! Yes, first example is David and Goliath! And like David, Your Excellency stands over Goliath in victory. But that is not enough. Our real enemy is that Your Excellency is Governor of a State with a wretched economy. Indigenes of Your State are today reduced to battalions of beggars waiting for who will hire their loyalty on the usual “pay-as-you-go” basis.
Your Excellency, it brings us to another Bible- based parallel. Conscientious Rivers indigenes above 50, should identify with and commit our all to this second parallel. It is to liberate the economy and people of Rivers people from 23 years enslavement and poverty, for us to regain our dignity and pride. When the economy of Egypt was drifting into a disaster zone, even Pharaoh did not know it. He also did not know what to do. But God sent a Joseph to build the economy into a fortress of good fortune that overcame the economic and social disaster Egypt did not know was ahead. Your Excellency for 23 years, Rivers State has been ruled without any logical, credible and consistent PLAN of how to overcome mass poverty from our dehydrated local economies.
Your Excellency, Rivers State cannot survive one month without Federal allocation! So called IGR only about 10 per cent of Federal allocation.It is also not based on what we produce but on tax from other people’s productivity that pass through our State. Pharaoh did not know what to do in the case of Egypt. May it please God to position another Joseph in Governor Siminalayi Joseph Fubara to heal Rivers State and build an economy that all Africa will come to access in order to chart a new course out of worsening economic hardship that is caused by near zero investment in productivity and endemic reckless looting. They are the twin chambers nursing a corporate cancer unfolding across Nigeria and Africa. The hard work begins today, Your Excellency.
We need an economic blueprint that will enrich every Rivers senatorial district from investment to grow productivity and to enrich every Rivers person from career-based productive labour, just as Pharaoh was enriched by Joseph’s economic Blueprint. Let Rivers State stop the trend of waiting the lives of young Rivers people recruited by Phillistines into cultism, thuggery and easy money, as a career. These Phillistines believe they have only lost one phase of many legal battles and battles by other means. But from comments in the public media, their eyes are fixed on 4-years of war and more! Your Excellency, we the people will not let you forget what you owe us. We have to make unbelievers see that your leadership is different and that we are uprooting the old order of an unproductive Feudal System. That system makes a few persons and their cronies to monopolise our collective wealth, while the majority are left in misery. Let’s put an end to enslavement by cabals and mass poverty in Rivers State. That is when the Phillistines will surrender.
By: Amaopusenibo Brown