Judul : The Many Faces Of Our Killers
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The Many Faces Of Our Killers
Anambra State Governor Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo recently appeared in a video addressing what looked to be an Igbo audience in a foreign country in English and Igbo languages. He said enough in English to convey the basic point that 99. 99 per cent of arrested kidnappers in his state are not Fulani, but Igbo people resident in Anambra State. He said a lot more on how youth in the state have become exposed to other crimes such as 'yahoo' and drug trafficking. I came across a lot of comments condemning the Governor for lying with regards to the role of the Fulani in kidnappings in the state; for playing to a Hausa/ Fulani/ North gallery for political reasons; for dragging Igbo honour in the mud, and for being an incompetent governor who trashed Governor Peter Obi's enviable legacy in the state. A few of the comments admitted that Igbo locals are involved in kidnapping, but to absolve the Fulani herdsmen of complicity is to offend the realities on the ground.
Now Governor Radda of Katsina State is saying 90 per cent of the people involved in banditry and kidnappings in his state are locals. So far there has been no robust repudiation and accusations of maligning local communities and absolving the Fulani herdsman. It is unlikely to be one, largely due to the fact most villagers know that kidnapping has Fulani and local Hausa as both victims and perpetrators. It is likely that some of the Anambra elite who took up Soludo's comments are in deep denial, so deep that they are willing to misidentify multiple causes and consequences ignoring the real nature of problems in their region, particularly the neglect of lawful, productive opportunities for young people. Governor Radda, on the other hand, may be speaking in the context of a beleaguered environment where virtually everyone knows the magnitude of their problems and their causes.
The two governors suggest a basic fact: threats to life and property are local and endemic. Soludo invites attention to a reality rarely faced openly by Igbo elite, which is the physical and social gulf that exists between an elite and the rest of the population. Radda invites attention to the domestic nature of the problem, and by implication, suggests the difficulties in finding solutions to it. An essentially African system of dealing with communal and inter-group relations has been eroded and perverted by a succession of inept, reckless and opportunistic political elite, creating in its place a state that is virtually absent on the ground, and citizens whose existence increasingly depends on it. Both governors challenge the temptations to stereotype and therefore fail to identify an effective solution to it. Significantly, both also invite attention to the relative poverty of their powers or their inability to deal with basic threats. They have responsibility but little power to bring to bear on problems which threaten populations.
The nation faces an existential threat that will take massive changes in leadership and approach to deal with. The State is failing in its most basic responsibility to secure the life and livelihood of the citizen. The Fulani herdsman provides a rough-and-ready explanation for staple threats to lives across the country and the catalyst for the terrifying state of inter-ethnic relations. While he does exist in reality, he does it in a manner which questions the very foundations of our security, law and order institutions. He has spawned an entire industry behind his success with informants, suppliers, collaborators, desperately poor rural dwellers with an eye on quick opportunities, other Fulani pauperised by him, compromised state institutions, copy cats, opportunists, hate merchants, and irredentists. He compounds the burden of threats from an insurgency seemingly in resurgence, ISWAP looking to establish a base in Nigeria to operate in much of the Sahel and groups like the Lakurawa exploiting scandalous gaps in our internal and border security.
Virtually every state or even community has a rag tag outfit with the mandate to fight against the Fulani bandit, or those threats that are routinely associated with him. Brave citizens put their lives in danger to take on hardened criminals with massive advantages over them. They take liberties with their mandate which professional state outfits ordinarily will not do. They operate in place of a constitutional vacuum which prevents sub-nationals from establishing policing outfits. The vigilante system operates exactly like a poor police outfit with a dubious legal identity. It is armed and poorly-trained, yet many communities and localities believe in it unquestionably. Worse, it serves as justification for villages and communities to set up theirs, identify their own enemy and choose modes of engaging it. In many instances the enemy is politically profiled. This pitches citizens against other citizens, fuelling perceived and genuine grievances. Identities of many Nigerians puts them instantly in danger in certain situations, and others die in dozens or hundreds, and enemies are instantly presumed, even where facts later reveal that the enemy had different characteristics and motives.
Nigerians have a right to question the capacity of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration in reducing their exposure and vulnerability to non-state violent actors. Pointing fingers at inherited liabilities and records is no defence. We have fared progressively worse in the last decade and a half, but no leadership has a right to defend its record by reference to its inheritance. It is clear that subsequent administrations will be judged basically on their abilities to stop our lives from being taken by all manner of criminals. The Nigerian State is weak because its basic governance institutions have been corrupted to a point where they do not function. Those who want out next mandates should prioritise fighting corruption. If we can radically reduce corruption in our institutions and systems, we can rebuild our security infrastructure and protect all Nigerians from being victims of all manner of killers.
Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).Demikianlah Artikel The Many Faces Of Our Killers
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