About three weeks ago, Bello Matawalle performed for the first time since being sworn in as governor of Zamfara State. It was a rare sight as he posed for photos with troops and others in a celebratory mood after another in the army’s recent victories against the twin evils of banditry and insurgency in the Northwest and Northeast; victories that somehow escaped the prying eyes of the media and were thus not reported with the same zeal as the afo’s exploits.
If the scant reports from the war zones in Borno, Yobe, Niger, Sokoto, Kaduna, Zamfara, and Katsina are to be believed, insurgents and bandits in these and other states have been visited with vengeance in greater measure in the last few weeks than they have dispensed to troops and hapless citizens in those parts of the country. Bandits and insurgents who had previously turned down amnesty offers from state governments are now pleading for it. They’ve been bombed from the air and pursued by ground troops, and their tails have been tucked between their legs as they run in different directions. They can’t tell what’s hitting them because of the heat and resulting confusion in their camps.
The bandits and insurgents did not give the troops any quarter during their reign of terror, and the troops do not appear to be willing to do so now that the tables have turned. Neither do the federal and state governments, including Katsina State governors Matawalle and Aminu Masari, who toyed with the idea of bandit amnesty until it blew up in their faces. Despite the agitation by their chief advocate, Sheikh Gumi, that their atrocities should be treated as a kind gesture and that we should all go down on our knees and beg them for mercy, Matawalle said last week that the days of negotiation with bandits were over.
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Since some bandits attacked the Nigerian Defence Academy, the country’s apex military training institution, killing two officers and kidnapping one, things appear to have not been the same on both sides of the divide. Since then, military airstrikes are said to have reduced fortified enclaves of bandits in various parts of the Northwest and Northeast to rubbles, killing hundreds of them, particularly in Zamfara State.
Only yesterday, there were reports of the arrest of three of Satan’s direct offspring, who on July 5, invaded Bethel Baptist Secondary School Kujuma in Chikun Local Government Area, Kaduna State, abducted 121 innocent students, and tortured them for weeks. The three agents of darkness had such a harmless appearance that it made me wonder why God decided to dress some beasts in human clothing in His work of creation.
It also made me yearn wistfully for the spiritual status of Pastor Timothy Adeboye, Bishop David Oyedepo, and other acclaimed men of God who, because of their faith, are always within whispering distance of the Almighty, so that I can ask Him a question that has vexed me for years: why did He not make it possible for people to hear what others around them are thinking so that, in spite of their faith, they can ask the Almighty a question that has v
Of course, some cynics would rather attribute the military’s recent victories over insurgents and bandits to factors other than competence and ability. For example, they would point to the fact that the deadly Boko Haram sect was in shambles after its heartless leader, Abubakar Shekau, was killed by the sect’s rival faction, ISWAP. However, such submissions are oversimplified because it is possible to have such an opportunity without the desire to take advantage of it, as the troops did. However, if the war is to be won, they and other security agents must be willing to expose the fifth columnists within their ranks.
Recently, Navy Commodore Kunle Olawunmi sparked outrage across the country when he claimed in an interview on Channels Television that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration refused to investigate high-profile politicians named by Boko Haram terrorists as sponsors. “You remember this Boko Haram issue started in 2012, and I was in the military intelligence at the time,” Olawunmi, who said he was a member of the Intelligence Brief at the Defence Headquarters during the tenure of the then Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin (rtd), said. We detained those individuals, and my organization conducted interrogation, during which they (suspects) mentioned names. I can’t go on the air and start naming people who are currently in government who I know the boys who were arrested mentioned. Some of them are now governors, some are in the Senate, and some are in Aso Rock…”
The government should at the very least request that security agencies investigate all public officials implicated in such a high-profile report. Fortunately, the United Arab Emirates has started the ball rolling by naming and prosecuting some of the people involved in sponsoring the Boko Haram sect. It is hoped that the Buhari administration will take a page from the UAE’s bold move in naming and shaming those involved in sponsoring insurgency in the country.
