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