Just when you think you would have had enough from what is now increasingly becoming a crude joke on us all as a nation, I mean our presumed fight against insurgency, somebody somewhere will again jolt us with something so silly that you can’t but question our collective sanity as a people. You cannot help but think that we all should be subjected to psychiatric examinations. Are we normal, or are we just cursed? Why are we doing the same thing all over and expecting different results?
Now, if you think I am just making things up or just being pessimistic or alarmist, where else in the world would bandits break into prisons as regularly as they do here to rescue their colleagues, yet our security agencies cannot invade the so-called forests where these ragtag bandits operate from? Where else do governments tolerate and patronize blood-thirsty murderers as we do in the name of reintegrating them into the same society with their victims?
Now, if you think you have heard enough, wait until you hear of how a felon declared wanted by the police for heinous crimes was turbaned with hundreds of his fellow bandits in attendance to cheer him up?
Penultimate Saturday, over 100 bandits attended the turbaning ceremony of a bandit kingpin called Ada Aleru as the Sarkin Fulani (leader of Fulani) by the Emir of Yandoto.
According to a source, “the bandits were going on motorcycles without their guns. It was a brief ceremony attended by a few people.
“The Emir of Yandoto, Alhaji Garba Marafa, gave the title of Sarki Fulani to the notorious bandit who operated in Zamfara and Katsina states because he was willing to embrace peace.
“At a meeting, Ada Aleru agreed to stop attacking the communities and villages in the emirate. He has also agreed to allow people to go to their farms.
“This made the emirate confer the title on Aleru so that he would help to ensure peace returns to the emirate.”
Just before you begin to blame the poor Emir of Yandoto, you must realize that the poor man could not have done that under normal circumstances. He probably would have seen that help was not going to come from anywhere and that before long the people in the emirate were going to starve to death if something drastic was not done.
Amid public outcry, the Yandoto Emirate Council defended the turbaning describing Aleru as a “repentant bandit leader and peace promoter”, who has helped the community to ensure that farmers have access to farms without any attack.
The spokesperson of the emirate, Lawal Magaji, told journalists that Aleru is considered as a peace-maker within the emirate.
Magaji said, “With this development, the people of the emirate can now go to their farms without fear of bandits attacks.
“He has been trying to stop banditry within the emirate and we have seen positive changes. The conferment of the title of Sarkin Fulani on Adoi Aleru would give him more power to control the entire Fulani people within the emirate. It will also enable him to check the activities of the recalcitrant bandits and take action against them within the emirate.
“I want to use this medium to appeal to the entire people of the state to look at this as the best option to address the issue of banditry. This is because the bandit leader has repented and is now fighting those who have refused to surrender,” he said.
Expectedly, some people would readily blame the poor emir, but what option is really left for the man? Zamfara State governor, Bello Mohammed Matawalle, himself had severally in the past fraternized with these bandits in his wrong-headed attempt to pacify them, but the more he did that the more ferocious the bandits became.
Recently, Gov Matawalle, in frustration, called on the federal government to allow civilians to bear arms to defend themselves. He has now realized that you can never satisfy a blackmailer or a kidnapper. Patronizing and romancing them cannot be a way out. Even those notorious for fraternizing with them like Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, have done so without success.
Perhaps, in a bid to assuage the outrage that greeted the disgraceful turbaning of the suspect, the Zamfara State Government has suspended Marafa. The usual knee-jerk reaction to issues of national importance.
The statement reads, “This is to inform the general public that the Zamfara State Government has dissociated itself from the alleged turbaning of a Sarkin Fulani by the Emir of Birnin ‘Yandoto of Tsafe Local Government Area”.
Again, the Zamfara governor cannot claim to be unaware of the planned turbaning of the man well ahead of time. If he was aware, what did he do? Does he not stand accused himself of the same offence having in the past embraced these murderers?
Similarly, the police and the military cannot claim not to know that this was going to happen. What did the security services do to arrest Aleru that the police had long declared wanted with a bounty price of N5 million by Katsina police. To even think that over a hundred bandits came to felicitate Aleru, tells one what manner of respect these felons have for the Nigerian state.
It is a confirmation to the fact that the reason the supposed fight against terrorism has lingered is because there is clearly no genuine attempt to take down these criminals. Since the government had failed the people and they knew that unless they took their destiny in their hands, they would die of hunger; they had no choice but to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea.
It is also an indication that the reason the cost of food has continued to skyrocket is because our farmers can no longer access their farms; a fact which the Federal Government still finds difficult to accept when they keep blaming the shortage of food on the activities of middlemen.
Suspending the poor emir is only being hypocritical and playing the ostrich. Nobody just sits and watches his family die of hunger without doing anything; even if it means doing the unethical or unthinkable. It is these realities that push people to desperation. If Matawalle has himself fraternized with these bandits in the past even when he was severally advised against doing so, what moral justification does he now have to punish a local leader who feels the pang of the hunger arising from the denial of his people to access their farms?
Until the federal government begins to sincerely hunt those behind this brigandage and their sponsors and begin to deal with them no matter their status in the society, for so long shall we continue in this circus show which is daily tearing the nation apart, making us a laughing stock in the comity of nations. The people of Yandoto and others in similar situations need to have access to their farms so they can live. Aleru and his likes should be arrested and tried. Anything short of this is not only cosmetic but unacceptable.
