It appears that the bandits who have practically taken over many rural communities in Kaduna and Niger States are not letting up in their determination to make life unbearable for Nigeria`s rural communities. They have continued to invent atrocity after atrocity, each more chilling than the last in its conception and execution.
Besieged communities.
News of attacks and consequent slaughter on some of those communities usually read like some fairy tales. But, they are the lived realities of the communities, families and their children for whom the sound of gunshots and the sight of blood have become all too common.
In Kaduna State, communities in Kajuru Local Government have taken in more than their own fair share of ruthless attacks by criminals bearing sophisticated weapons. Perhaps, the travails of the innocent people of Kajuru Local Government Area in particular and Southern Kaduna in general have only been topped by the horror in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area which has itself become a base from which the bandits launch attacks into neighbouring Niger State. The attacks came to a head on Wednesday June 28, 2022 when an attack on Ajata Aboki in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State by bandits from the forests around Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna state led to the deaths of more than forty soldiers, policemen and civilians.
Terrorist financing
It now appears that with the bandits unrelenting in their deadly activities, and the government seemingly overwhelmed by the entire situation, some communities in Kaduna State have started to pay bandits so they can let them go to their farms.
Mr. Zubairu Abdulra’uf, a community leader from the Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State recently confirmed to journalists in Kaduna that as constant attacks had paralyzed economic activities in rural areas and made travelling impossible, residents had taken to defending themselves as well as paying huge amounts of money to the bandits. He mentioned that between three hundred and four hundred million naira had been paid to the bandits in Birnin Gwari Local Government alone.
It has long been an open secret that the terrorist groups determined to run Nigeria aground have been largely successful not just in making huge sums of money out of their staggering crimes but in successfully moving those sums which run into billions of naira through Nigeria`s porous financial system.
A cocktail of chaos
If terrorism in Nigeria was long thought to be about territory alone, it has now become obvious that a lot of it has always been about finance too. When last year, over a hundred students were kidnapped from a school run by the Baptist Covention in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, the Convention was to later disclose that it parted with over 250 million naira to secure their release.
When terrorists stormed the AK-9 train travelling from Abuja to Kaduna on March 28, 2022, killing about nine persons and abducting dozens, the first of the victims to be released was released only after he coughed out the sum of 100 million naira.
Hapless and helpless communities in Kaduna, Niger and Zamfara States especially, are caught in a situation where they are being forced to fund the terrorist activities of the terrorists who would otherwise kill and slaughter them at will.
It is no doubt a question of Nigeria`s security having failed, of accountability having failed, and the government having failed also.
If the security and welfare of citizens which usually falls within the province of the state to guarantee has been left at the hands of ruthless criminals who are devilishly ingenious in devising measures to induce terror while keeping their vile ventures profitable, then it is perhaps past the time to ask probing questions of those sworn to be responsible for managing the country and every facet of its national life.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
