COUNTERPOINT By Femi Akintunde-Johnson
During my research in the writing of this article, I stumbled on a blog piece on the website of the famous New York-domiciled NGO think tank, Council on Foreign Relations, published about a year ago, July 23, 2020, by Nkasi Wodu. He is a Port Harcourt based “lawyer, peacebuilding practitioner, and development expert”. The 643-word document was titled “Not All Violent Problems Require Violent Solutions: Banditry in Nigeria’s North-West”.
In contextualising the arguments and features that highlight deliberate or inadvertent cannon-fodders which ultimately weaponise banditry around Nigeria, we will quote fairly copiously from Wodu’s insightful submissions – as introductory premise to our interrogation of the putative social-economic triggers making this dreadful “enemy”continue to fester and threaten to overrun our country.
The recent abduction of 27 pupils and 15 workers of Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State by armed bandits is another demonstration of the dilapidated state of security in Nigeria and the Nigerian state’s failure to secure the lives and ensure the safety of her citizens. According to news reports, the bandits demand N500m to release the abducted students and workers held in a forest that connects Kebbi, Zamfara, Niger and the Kaduna States. Kaduna-based Islamic cleric Ahmad Gumi is said to be negotiating with the bandits. Niger State Governor Abubakar Bello Sani has vowed to do everything within his powers to ensure the students are released unhurt.
From Kankara To Kagara: The Deification of Banditry, By Dakuku Peterside
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi in meeting and negotiation with bandits. Picture credit: The PUNCH.
Some of the bandits who carried out the abduction have become media celebrities. Kagara is an expected consequence of Kankara. If Kagara goes the way of Kankara, the stage is set to deify armed banditry in Nigeria and tacitly give it consent as an industry.
The recent abduction of 27 pupils and 15 workers of Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State by armed bandits is another demonstration of the dilapidated state of security in Nigeria and the Nigerian state’s failure to secure the lives and ensure the safety of her citizens. According to news reports, the bandits have demanded N500 million to release the abducted students and workers held in a forest that connects Kebbi, Zamfara, Niger and the Kaduna States. Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Ahmad Gumi is said to be negotiating with the bandits. Niger State Governor Ab