In the latest footage released by the Ansaru faction of the Boko Haram terrorists that kidnapped 46 Nigerians in two communities in Ogbomoso Local Government Area of Oyo State, nearly all of them being schoolchildren and their teachers, one of the terrorists can be seen pointing the barrel of his weapon in the face of Mrs. Racheal Alamu, the school principal who has been made the main spokesperson of the abductees, in a shameless display of cowardly strength. Available publicly are also photographs of children alleged to be among those held at gunpoint in the forest, their bodies badly bruised and faces bloodied. What could these children have done to deserve such a fate from the terrorists? Mrs. Mary Akanbi, a teacher, is the other person suborned to speak on behalf of the abductees.
The main brief of the two women is to plead with the authorities in Oyo State and Abuja not to contemplate any attempt to rescue the abducted people and to hasten to meet the demands of the terrorists. The message here is that any attempt to storm the forest would only endanger the lives of the captives. The terrorists could not have found better conveyors of their message than two traumatised women — mothers, one of them with her one-year-old child sometimes strapped to her back or held in her arms, constantly swiping off insects, right in the middle of nowhere. It was deeply painful to see these women under the control of criminals whose heartstrings have been calloused by evil, literally holding the power of life and death over them and gloating as they begged for their lives. It was a heart-rending sight.
We can, perhaps, only imagine, not know, how the families of the abductees are taking the situation. These must be some of the worst moments of their lives. Anyone in doubt of this only needs to recall the footage of that moment when Mr. Alamu, the husband of the school principal, pleaded with the State Governor, Seyi Makinde, to do all within his power to ensure the return of the captives. Mr. Alamu, a professor and dean of one of the faculties of Ladoke Akintola University, was enveloped in sorrow and reduced to tears as he was held in a close embrace and consoled by the governor. That is what the Nigerian state has reduced its own citizens to: a people who have to beg for their lives rather than take for granted their constitutionally guaranteed right to the security of life and property. The Alamus, as are the others held in the forest, must have been saddened no less by their condition than by the apparent helplessness that has characterised the official response to their plight by federal and state authorities. Each, in a public demonstration of mutual disaffection, pursued its own agenda for the resolution of the impasse in the forest. No collaboration.
Abuja sent a so-called high-powered delegation led by the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, to the affected communities just this past weekend, two weeks after the abduction. The Inspector General of Police, Tunji Disu, earlier visited. Seyi Makinde made a separate visit too. Generally, the official optics that have surrounded this abduction have been very depressing. To speak about it in this manner is to ring the alarm bell even louder about how irresolute and helpless governments at all levels have responded to the various shades of terrorism that have dogged Nigeria in the last two decades, especially the clearly provocative incursion in the last three years into Yorubaland. This region has enjoyed relative peace among the troubled regions of the country — north, south and Middle Belt. Otherwise, there have been new kidnapping incidents in Borno, Kwara, Kogi and Plateau since the Ogbomoso debacle. The attacks are attempts to say nowhere in Nigeria is safe, including the ostensibly peaceful region that produced the president.
While this may undermine any claims of the ruling party to providing security to Nigerians on the eve of a national election, it is no doubt a clear message to the Yoruba themselves. Whatever the terrorists may have done to disrupt everyday life and education elsewhere, they must not be allowed to take hold in the south-west where schools and communities are now being sacked. Unfortunately, President Bola Tinubu’s hands have been tied by politics and he seems unwilling to go beyond the point he reached within the first two years of his administration. Then he pushed for the establishment of state police and fiscal federalism. That would have seen governors take charge of state security while municipal authorities assume control of their purse, away from the brigandage of state governors.
But my message is to south-west governors. No state or region under constant threats and actual attacks by terrorists should be as unprepared as they have been. They are not as helpless as they are making out. They must work together and take a regional approach to the matter. They can achieve a lot and the evidence for this can be found in the robust manner the late governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, responded to the terrorist attack on St. Francis Catholic Church. He championed the establishment of Amotekun against the bullying antics of the Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government. His bold and forward-looking action is the reason the Owo terrorists are being brought to book years after his death and Amotekun is better entrenched in Ondo than in any other south-west state. Amotekun in Ondo has, however, not been as effective as it was under Akeredolu.
South-west governors need not wait for or be held down by President Bola Tinubu’s re-election politics. Their clerical and political counterparts opposed to state police or promoting sharia in the north have never been subtle about their position. That is why the country’s national parks and forested spaces have been appropriated by terrorists and transformed into ethnic estates for the abduction of other citizens.
It is why a man could sit in or leave his obscure mosque and lead peace expeditions into terrorist enclaves and then return to openly canvass the rehabilitation of mass murderers, the same people kidnapping infants, brutalising children, thrusting gun muzzles in the faces of women and beheading innocent men. These are the kind of people we uphold, renegade religionists we call sheikhs that have been declared persona non grata and barred from the homeland of the rightful custodians of the religion they profess. It is people like this who should be answering to charges of sponsoring terrorism or making dangerous excuses for terrorists, we celebrate. Not anymore. And political leaders not prepared to fight terrorism, no matter what it takes, cannot balk at the payment of ransom.
