Early this year, one of my friend, then a serving corp member in Jigawa state was whisked away by armed kidnappers along the dreaded Kano/Kaduna expressway. That experience, coupled with the fact that I last spoke with him on my birthday was as harrowing, heartbreaking as it was troubling. He spent ten horrible days inside that den of horror surviving on white rice, palm oil and fear of imminent death that await those who couldn’t arrange for ransom. He was one of them.
As of the time I spoke with him mid this year, he narrated his ordeal, recounting how one of the kidnappers pointed an AK47 rifle on his skull threatening to blow off his head for failing to raise ransom. Fortunately, he was rescued alongside others by men of Nigerian Police force who followed a tip which eventually turned out to be true.
Around late October, another friend of mine was also kidnapped on his way to visit his ailing father in Zamfara state. This time, his abductors requested for a ransom of one point five million. Raising such huge amount at this pandemic period appear first as Herculean task but with persuasive message, intended to solicit for help, the money got raised. As I sat with him one breeze evening to discuss his ordeals, I knew the nightmarish experience is etch permanently in his memory. These two stories are same for most Nigerians in the North. They mirror hopelessness and helplessness. Reflect tragedy and trauma of being a Nigerian. A complete textbook example of a failing state.
That is why the scary security situation in the North should baffles everyone irrespective of region or religion. The precarious turn of things should elicit sober reflection while it bounds us beyond ethnic and fault lines. As an existential threat to our fledging Democracy, the need for proactive, adaptive and creative measures aim at cushioning this pang while stemming its ugly tide has never been more urgent.
What the North is witnessing is akin to Hobbessian state of nature where life was “Brutish, solitary, nasty, short, and poor”. This is evidenced in the breakdown of security apparatus across the country especially in the North where the once vibrant and brilliant Nigerian security operatives continue to remain silenty muted, grossly inactive and utterly incapable of holding bandits, terrorists and kidnappers by jugular.
Instructively, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar’s indicting speech on the state of insecurity in the region clarifies misconceptions political hanger-on might want to create. Being a foremost traditional and religious rulers with military background. sultan’s speech hit government hardest while it paints the debilitating security situation with its ripple effects on the socio economic standing of the region.
However, the trouble with the Northern Nigeria goes beyond a vibrant, well equipped security apparatus plus a wide media coverage of happenings there, it’s a problem that is deeply and firmly rooted in the foundation of the region where out of school children run into millions, with unemployment climbing sky high while poverty rank highest in the world. Unless all these vestiges of social vices are tacked frontally, there is no escape route for the North from this self inflicted conflagration.
Muftau Adewale GBADEGESIN
muftaugbadegesin@gmail.com
09065176850
