‘War on banditry can never be won on battlefield’

Since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s assumption to office, Nigeria has been sleepwalking from one national security disaster to another, perpetuating the bloodbath in the North. The country is now thrown into a frenzy because the danger is closing in on Abuja the seat of power. Security agencies’ fire brigade approaches to these security threats only […]

Since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s assumption to office, Nigeria has been sleepwalking from one national security disaster to another, perpetuating the bloodbath in the North. The country is now thrown into a frenzy because the danger is closing in on Abuja the seat of power. Security agencies’ fire brigade approaches to these security threats only keep starring the hornets’ nests. 

This article is a call for an honest conversation on Nigeria’s security challenges, particularly banditry.

 President Tinubu’s words, deeds and body language, have shown beyond any doubt that all he is interested in is to get into power and control the economy where he has brazenly and unapologetically planted his tribesmen in all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) that control and appropriate money. He sees national security issues particularly banditry as irritants and distractions to his grand agenda.

 There is so much mistrust of this government because of its lack of transparency that people are seeing the recent spike in kidnapping in Abuja and the whole of the North as artificially engineered to justify the president’s clandestine grand agenda of relocating critical MDAs and eventually, the federal capital back to his hometown, Lagos. 

• No public funds withheld, Kyari counters NEITI’s claim
• Economy: Nigerians look up to 10 companies in 2024

 Deteriorating security in Abuja and neighbouring states is being cited as a reason for the planned move of critical MDAs. The Presidency has so far remained tight-lipped in addressing people’s real concerns about these speculations.

 Abuja witnessed worse real security threats during President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure, but as the commander-in-chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, he did not cut and run. So, the Presidency should come clean with Nigerians and tell us the real reasons for wanting to relocate the federal capital to Lagos instead of these embarrassingly sneaky and defeatist ones.

 The new military leadership has been singing the same old song that Nigerians have heard over the last eight years without presenting any concrete plan on how they will do things differently to end Nigeria’s multiple security challenges.

 It is no secret that the wars on banditry, Boko Haram and Niger Delta militancy have all become fat cash cows for the military, which explains why these conflicts have been allowed to fester for this long. President Tinubu is unlikely to change this culture.

 Although there is a very important role for the military, there is not going to be a military solution to banditry in Nigeria, the increasing militarisation of the conflict has so far been disastrous. The honest truth is that the military cannot bring peace between our peoples, to think differently, will be delusional. History has taught us that conflicts like this have never been won on the battlefield. 

 Banditry is essentially a social problem that has been allowed to fester and mutate into the profit-driven criminal enterprise it has become. All the drivers of these conflicts are local and their solutions must be found locally. Big military plans from Abuja without involving local stakeholders have not worked over the last eight years and will never work. So, things must be done differently to bring an end to this conflict, which in my heart of hearts, I know can be solved with the right approach.

 The increasing brazenness of the terrorists, abduction of female students, forced marriages of female captives, the use of explosives and attacks on police and military installations are all the modus operandi of Boko Haram, not bandits. We have for years been raising the alarm on encroachment of Boko Haram and its affiliates into the North West and North Central parts of the country and their unholy alliance with bandits. 

 Overall, there is a lot more than meets the eye about these flare ups of violence in Abuja and the North in general. We have received several reports of gunmen in military uniforms killing Fulani herders and dumping their corpses around villages of locals populated by mostly Christians, just to incite reprisals. This is obviously not the handiwork of our professional military.

 For an enduring peace, the goal should be to demilitarise this conflict and involve all local stakeholders for aggressive nationwide reconciliation between all communities, rehabilitation and disarmament of all warring parties. Otherwise, the war on banditry will be forever. 

 We will just be going round in cycles if the financiers, collaborators, supporters and the leadership of these terrorists are not identified and prosecuted.

 The Nigeria Police Force, a critical arm of law enforcement, has essentially abdicated its primary responsibility of internal policing to the military, reducing it to guarding VIPs or individuals and businesses that can pay. It is the police that are closer to the people, not the military that comes and goes. The Nigeria Police Force is dangerously under-resourced, understaffed, poorly motivated and has lost focus from its primary mandate.

 At a time when the country is facing the worst insecurity of our lifetime and citizens are experiencing excruciating daily hardships, it is unfortunate that our elected representatives in the National Assembly are only fixated on their comforts and that of their families, not what matters most to Nigerians.

 Equally worrisome is the fact that no two northern state governors are working together on finding lasting solutions to this conflict. Some of these governors have now resorted to forming their own armed militias to fight these terrorists because of the federal government’s failure to meet its primary constitutional responsibility of protecting citizens. 

 The dangers of these ethnically non inclusive outfits are: there will be worsening of the violence and bloodshed, extrajudicial killings of the innocent by these militias and the real fears that some governors will use these militias to intimidate their political opponents. The federal government should, as a matter of urgency, increase the size of the military and the police.

 Dialogue is a legitimate tool in resolving any conflict. Some new governors have declared that they will not negotiate with bandits and criminals, citing the failure of such efforts in the past as reasons. But past efforts cannot truly be considered as sincere dialogues.

 For a true and genuine dialogue to succeed, the following steps will need to be taken – The federal government must support and take complete ownership of the process, the process should be led by experts rather than politicians, a comprehensive stakeholder mapping and identification needs to be done to bring in all stakeholders, and there should be a declaration of ceasefire to enable unhindered participation of all parties. 

 Several federal government security agencies are widely reported to be currently engaged in dialogues with some bandits groups, mostly in the North West. Concerns we are getting from the field that will militate against the success of these dialogues are: There is no coordination among these many groups or a central reporting agency in charge of guarding the process, banditry is being approached in the dialogue as an ethnic Fulani problem rather than the national problem that it is, bus-loads of the Fulani from states in the North East that have no understanding of the culture or terrain of the people in the North West and North Central are transported to solve banditry in these zones, important local stakeholders are excluded, and money is said to be changing hands, mostly to select bandit leaders.

 All these mistakes are a recipe for failure, with far-reaching consequences that will be very difficult to fix. 

 Northern Nigeria needs to wake up to the systematic grand agenda to balkanise the region along ethnic, religious and economic lines. This evil agenda poses an existential threat to the region’s security, economy, social fabric and cohesion of its peoples, a rift that will take generations to heal.

 Step 1: The decimation of the North East by Boko Haram insurgency, which has been raging for 15 years with devastating consequences.

 Step 2: Banditry in the North West and North Central is perhaps the biggest threat to the peaceful existence of the North because, in addition to the serious security and economic consequences inflicted on the region, a seed of hatred has now been planted between ethnic groups, particularly between the majority the Hausa and Fulani that have lived in peace for generations 

 Step 3: The North, which is home to 65 per cent of the 133million Nigerians in multidimensional poverty, has the most out-of-school children, highest unemployment and drug abuse among youths.

 Step 4: Politics in the region, especially during the 2023 elections cycle, has been more divisive than anywhere else in the country. The ruling APC’s 2023 Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket has widened the divide between Muslims and Christians in the North, which is fueling religious strife not seen elsewhere in the country.

 Step 5: The strained relationship with Niger Republic following the military coup on 26 July 2023 that led to ECOWAS sanctions and border closure on Niger is causing severe hardship on Nigerians in the seven northern states bordering the country and will no doubt worsen poverty and insecurity in the North.

 As true leaders that live with and see the sufferings of their people, the dignified silence of our traditional rulers in the midst of all the injustices in the land only deepens the feelings of despair and hopelessness amongst people in the region, particularly the restless youths. People need to hear and see our traditional rulers getting more involved, collectively articulating their concerns and advocating them.

 In the midst of raging insecurity, hunger, excruciating poverty and sufferings in the land, some northern Muslim clerics have allowed their silence to be bought. Instead of speaking up against these injustices and preaching the true words of the scripture, they remain silent. The most disturbing trend now is that a few vocal ones are fighting each other on the social media on frivolous issues. 

 We northern elites that have seen and benefitted from a better Nigeria cannot, and should not continue to remain aloof to the state of the nation and the suffering of our people. We need to get positively engaged and give a voice to our voiceless many.

 Corruption remains far and away the biggest risk to Nigeria’s national security. Nigeria is a very richly endowed country that has no reason to be poor but the nation’s commonwealth is in the hands of a few. Peace will forever elude any society with as much corruption as there is in Nigeria. 

 No military, no matter how powerful, can bomb away injustices, grievances, poverty, citizens’ anger, hunger and illiteracy, which are the main drivers of insecurity. The government must invest in addressing these drivers instead of inexpensive military hardware that can never bring an end to this conflict.

 Usman Yusuf is a professor of Haematology-Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation