Zabarmari Massacre: What does it mean for Maiduguri, service chiefs and Buhari?

For those in Maiduguri, the more urgent concern is how really safe are they from Boko Haram terror.

Shock. A general sense of hopelessness. Outrage. And a sense of abandonment. These have been some of the most visible reactions to Saturday’s massacre of at least 43 farmers in Koshobe village in Borno State by Boko Haram.

The civilian JTF said 60 farmhands were hired to work the rice field in Koshobe on the day council elections held in Borno State for the first time in 13 years.

Forty-three corpses have been recovered. Six victims have been found alive but injured. Eight are missing, presumably abducted by Boko Haram.

The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, claims as many as 110 people could have been killed in the attack.

Last month, 22 farmers were reportedly killed in Borno by Boko Haram in two separate incidents but Saturday’s killings, the barbarity of it and even the audacity of it have made it even more shocking.

First, is the proximity. Koshobe, in Jere Local Government Area, is only 25KM away from Maiduguri, capital of Borno State. Maiduguri has served as a sort of green zone during the decade-long insurgency by Boko Haram, where thousands displaced by the terror group have found safety, where a significant bulk of the over two million people displaced by the crisis have been housed in displaced persons’ camps.

A whole army division, 7 Div, with headquarters at Maimalari Barracks, was formed and stationed there specifically to tackle Boko Haram. They have managed to keep Maiduguri safe. The same cannot be said of the rest of the state.

This massacre in Koshobe is telling. Those who know the place and the history claim it could have been avoided.

Not long ago, it was reported, people around that area had found a Boko Haram militant, managed to disarm him and handed him over to soldiers. If that wasn’t warning enough as to the presence of the terrorists in the area, the possibility of a Boko Haram reprisal should have made the military sit up and secured the area.

Both warning signs and projections were ignored. Boko Haram Struck.

It was clear they had free rein. They had the time to round up the farmers and tie them up. They slit the throats of some. They completely beheaded others and took the time to position the severed heads according to their macabre taste. It is hard to imagine the trauma those who first walked into that killing field would deal with.

What has angered Nigerians about the massacre, of course, is the casual reaction of the government at the centre. The presidency, through its spokesman, Garba Shehu, tweeted a condemnation of the killings.

“President @MBuhari has expressed grief over the killing of farmers on rice fields at Zabarmari, in Jere Local Government of Borno State, describing the terrorist killings as insane.

“I condemn the killing of our hardworking farmers by terrorists in Borno State. The entire country is hurt by these senseless killings. My thoughts are with their families in this time of grief. May their souls Rest In Peace.

“President Buhari said the government had given all the needed support to the armed forces “to take all necessary steps to protect the country’s population and its territory.”

Three tweets for 43 lives. What is strange about these tweets was that the presidency did not make any commitment to hunt the perpetrators. It only reaffirmed that it had “given the needed support” for the armed forces to protect the population. One might even read it as an indictment of the service chiefs, who have enjoyed unprecedented leeway from the president since he appointed them to office.

With all this support, it is clear the armed forces have failed in this duty.

Claims by the military that it had “technically defeated Boko Haram” in December 2015, were laughed at by Nigerians. Five years on, it is clear those claims were far from accurate and meant only to bamboozle the president. The reality on the ground then was different. Time has proven how different they are.

Boko Haram remains a potent threat and despite several claims of killing the terror group leader, Abubakar Shekau, the army recently announced his name amongst its most wanted people.

The military has been really bad at managing information about the crisis. They haven’t been great at managing the crisis at all like this latest massacre shows.

If the presidency intends to do anything about the killings, it is yet to do so, 24 hours after the incident.

Perhaps this also is a warning shot for Governor Babagana Zulum, who has been hell-bent on returning IDPs to their villages. The governor has been very proactive and hands-on, he was at the funeral of the 43 and it was obvious he felt the pain of these killings.

Since he assumed office in May 2019, he has been putting his life at risk, travelling the length and breadth of the state to push his desire to return IDPs to their homes and give them some form of decent life away from the camps. Twice his convoy has been shot at. Even last week, he had to deny there was another attempt on his life by the terrorists. And this weekend, council elections held in the state for the first time in 11 years.

This massacre, so close to his capital, is a reminder that Borno State is far from secure. It also captures clearly the governor’s frustration with the military’s seeming reluctance to finish the job, which has seen the governor butt heads with the military command in the past.

It is also a dent on the Federal Government’s policy of boosting agriculture by imploring people to return to farming. The economic realities of this project are obvious enough but the collapse of the security structure, which has seen bandits in the northwest demanding levies to allow farmers to harvest their crops. It has also resulted in the displacements of thousands of farmers from their communities and has seen the fear of kidnappers keeping other farmers from their farms, these killings in Borno will only warn off other farmers from venturing into the farms.

The implication for the food security of the country is stark. Unless urgent measures are taken, there can be no guarantees of the country’s food security going into the next year.

But with these security failures and the presidency’s unwitting indictment of the service chiefs, who have been given all the needed support to secure the lives of Nigerians, it is not clear yet how the president will deal with this recent incident.

What has been clear though is the president’s notorious reluctance to shake things up. Previous calamitous failings, the elapse of their tenures in office and the attainment of the mandatory age of retirement by at least one of the service chiefs, have not seen the president make a move. That is unlikely to change. But even the president’s unflinching support base that has stood by him through the #EndSARS protests, recession, fuel price hikes and bumbling economic policies, seems to have lost its voice in this disaster. He is not running for another office so, in the long run, that means little to him.

That may not be the case for the service chiefs. In the wake of this horrible massacre, Nigerians are asking, are they worth holding onto? But then again, they have asked this before.

For those in Maiduguri, the more urgent concern is how really safe are they from Boko Haram terror.