SLOWLY but steadily, Nigeria is sliding into war. Shortly after bandits slaughtered three of the kidnapped 23 undergraduates of Greenfield University, Kaduna, Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, captured the moment explicitly in a statement entitled, ‘Endless Martyrdom of Youth.’ He said, “This nation is at war, yet we continue to pretend that these are mere birth-pangs of a glorious entity.” Seriously, Nigeria is on the brink of catastrophe because of the bloody violence that has ensnared it on the watch of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
Soyinka’s perspective on the current “cowardly savagery” coincides with other notable voices, all calling on Buhari to seek help, review the impotent security system or return Nigeria to true federalism. But there is a sense of doom with Buhari in charge. The President has not shown the willpower to steer Nigeria out of violence.
State failure is playing out extensively. Before the ink dried on Soyinka’s warning, the bandits, who demanded a ransom of N800 million, had killed two more of the Greenfield students. Their audacious threat to massacre the remaining 17 students in their custody is foreboding.
Plainly, Buhari has lost control of non-state actors; Nigeria is at war in many theatres. The human and economic costs of this anarchy are simply unsustainable. In the North-East, Islamic terrorists have regained the upper hand over the military. Boko Haram, which has killed more than 100,000 persons and displaced millions, is better armed than the military. Insurgents are recapturing territories, with Geidam, Yobe State, and southern Borno State their latest prizes.
Hitherto relatively safe, bandits have seized control of the North-West. Mass abduction at schools and random killings are their signature atrocities. Apart from the deadly mission to Greenfield, bandits abducted scores of students at the Forestry College in Kaduna. In the Sahel region, writes Larisa Brown, The Times (London) Defence Editor, jihadist insurgent groups are also becoming “blurred” with bandits who steal cattle and money from local people, making it extremely difficult to distinguish who is working for whom.
The Kaduna State Government said 393 persons lost their lives in the first three months of 2021; 926 were kidnapped. Despite the presence of the military in internal security operations in 34 states, 741 Nigerians were killed and over 1,000 kidnapped in the first 96 days in office of the new Service Chiefs. That excludes the deaths and destruction of property from communal strife. This is nothing but a descent into war. In Israel, where 44 people died in the annual Lag B’Omer religious festival stampede last weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promptly visited the site and declared a national day of mourning.
The North-Central is bleeding blood again. Eleven soldiers were butchered early in April in Benue State. Between late April and early May, bandits and Fulani herdsmen slaughtered 70 people in an IDP camp in Makurdi. Before this died down, 19 others were massacred on Monday in the Gwer LGA of the state. The bloody frenzy has spread to Nasarawa, Plateau, Taraba and Kogi states. Its more deadly version occurs in Niger State, where Boko Haram has hoisted its flag in 50 villages in two LGAs. Various international reports categorise Nigeria among the world’s three most terrorised countries.
The South-East is at the point of anarchy. Police, soldiers, and government institutions have been attacked since March. Attacks on the Imo State Police Command HQs, the prisons, military checkpoints, and police stations in Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu states depict the weakness of the Nigerian state in arresting the slide into internecine war. In Anambra State, there is hardly a day that goes by without loss of lives from cult-related clashes, especially in Awka. The Imo State governor, Hope Uzodimma, lost his country home in Oru to invaders. Offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission are under serial attacks in the South-South and South-East. Lives are being wasted in Rivers State. Beyond empty rhetoric, the security agencies rush to blame the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra as the mastermind.
Insecurity is ravaging Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti, Ondo, and Osun in the South-West. A duo was abducted in Ofada, Ogun State, last weekend. A group of ranch owners was abducted in Ibarapa, Oyo State, where Fulani herders are rampaging freely. ‘Freedom fighters’ and self-determination groups are emerging from the chaos. The United States Embassy has just issued an advisory, warning American citizens to be careful of traffic robbers in Lagos. Kidnappers are moving to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the adjoining areas without any serious pushback from security agencies. With an uncontrolled influx of commercial motorcycle riders, it is a matter of time before criminals seize control of the megapolis.
All over, the threat level is higher than what triggered the Civil War in 1967. Several factors are to blame, some of them self-inflicted. The Buhari regime is mistrusted by the other regional groupings because of its divisive, clannish appointments into the security apparatus. The police are short-handed, their plight aggravated by the deployment of a third of the force in illegal VIP duties. Any President serious about security will clamp down on this anomaly and initiate a decentralised police system. The military is poorly armed, under-motivated and lacks inspiring leadership in a time of war. Unnecessarily obdurate, the Buhari regime endangers the corporate existence of Nigeria by rejecting the agitations for a just restructuring of the political system.
Today, the country faces a break or save dilemma. As society breaks down, the breakup of the state is a foreboding reality. It will be dangerous to allow Nigeria to slide into a war it can ill afford. The readiness of the state governors to maintain law and order without fear or favour will help stanch the slide to chaos. As an immediate step to counter this trend, the President should declare a state of emergency on security, initiate security reforms and take necessary measures towards running an inclusive government. Eventually, fashioning a constitution that truly reflects the plurality of Nigerian society remains the only viable option to prevent the country from falling apart.
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