By Saidu Abubakar
Times without number, Nigerian leaders have been reminded of what they know too well – the primary responsibility of a government is protection and welfare of its people. Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, Section 14(2)(b) says it directly: “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
1. Security — protect lives and property from internal and external threats (army, police, law).
2. Law and order — make and enforce laws, provide justice.
3. Welfare — provide basic public goods: education, healthcare, roads, water, economy.
4. Sovereignty — manage relations with other countries and preserve independence. Unfortunately, banditry seems to have taken over all of the above, especially in northern Nigeria. Lives and property of citizens seem no longer important but how the politicians can win elections, whereas the electorate are, daily, being animalized.
It’s the umpteenth time one has had to read or learn of the news of armed bandits sacking villages and towns up north of Nigeria. Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger and some parts of Kaduna are regular in such news of this endless dehumanization. It’s as if the victims are not supposedly governed by the people they voted into power.
I wouldn’t say I did not shed any tears when I read on a very senior journalist Tijjani Isah’s Facebook wall, how Jega town in Kebbi State is being jam-packed by displaced men, women and children from villages so many kilometers away, who have been forced to abandon their ancestral homes, farms and other means of livelihood for their dear lives.
Please join me to read Tijjani’s touchy post below:
Alelu, Karaye, Jandutsi, Kimba and Jadadi have all been deserted.
Women with children on their backs. Holding one or two toddlers on their right or left hands, atop their heads bundles of clothing they were able to salvage as they deserted their homes in the middle of the night or wee hours of the morning.
The town of convergence is Jega, my hometown and headquarters of the local government council so named.
My childhood friend Muhammad Fircin whom I contacted to hear first hand the situation after watching video clips on YouTube, youths on a protest march on the Jega Yauri highway.
He filled me in on the details of what went on. He said it all began following the unsettling sight of a massive exodus of women, men, children and the elderly never seen in Jega for decades. If there were ever one in recent history.
He said no single house; residential, business premises, warehouses, market stalls, spared as multitudes scrabble for any available space they could find to rest tired bones. Families, consisting mostly of women and children have forced themselves into shelters uninvited. He said there is no home without such inconvenient guests.
The men, those who are not cowardly, were among the youths seen recently protesting, demanding accountability from security forces and the governments of Kebbi and at Abuja.
The brave also attempted to march on the enclave of the terrorists until violently stopped by the military detachment deployed to the areas.
The environment is also affected.
Refuse dumps are overflowing. Stench of excrements, because of lack of public conveniences, is overpowering.
It all began few days ago when bandits stormed these villages at midnight, shooting in the air, killing or wounding the hard headed who attempted to resist the midnight raid.
The villagers reported that the gun toting bandits came in groups of 500 or more on motorcycles.
Their orders were blunt: leave or die.
Kebbi State, as the reader would realize, is in the North West region of Nigeria. It’s one of the seven states most ravaged by the scourge of insecurity, of kidnappings and banditry, infamously made popular by the Lakurawa extremist group that emerged recently.
Now, what is the attraction?
Why Jega and environs?
Two things stand out.
The most famous is that Jega is a well known commercial hub. Probably second only to Kano. In fact, it’s well established that the outskirt of the town – the Sabon Gari – is acknowledged historically to have been populated by traders from mostly Kano, Katsina, Jibia, from Niger and Benin republics who transited Jega as the ultimate Zango on their way to the southern parts of Nigeria, specifically, Lagos and Ibadan, for commercial activities or menial jobs.
Some who were not fortunate enough to cross the Jega river southwards after arriving, and are forced to await for days during raining season for the river to recede before they could continue their journey of fortune.
Few of them, according to legend, made the journey and back. Others not so fortunate because of dwindled finances, terminated their journey and made Jega their new found home. They married local girls and have since known nowhere else as home as their origins are only a distance memory.
Jega has since then become a home for rich merchants. And this might as well be reason enough for the criminally minded to attempt to disrupt commercial activities there.
The other reason that stands out for the midnight invasion is nouveau.
This is the new form of extracting the riches of Africa through foreign sponsored – most probably with the connivance of governments both at local and state levels. A type of terrorism using local or foreign groups to forcibly remove villagers in the periphery of villages found to contain large deposits of mineral deposits, for easy extraction.
Get them farthest away so as not to interfere with the criminal theft.
This act of terrorism is well established as the case in Zamfara State.
Curiously, recent findings have shown that these particular villages and towns, specifically Karaye, sits on a large scale and commercially viable uranium deposits.
The other settlements also have their own fair share of solid minerals.
It therefore calls for prompt action from the state government, if it is not complicit, so that Jega and environs do not decent into anarchy.
Already, It has been reported that the displaced locals are up in arms threatening to confront the criminals with or without the support of law enforcement agencies.
The Kebbi State government must also act with despatch and come clean and be accountable because lives are at stake.
Accountable it must because proximity to Niger Republic, which recently terminated long standing relationship with France, has put paid to the rumors that Nigeria might be France’s next cash (uranium) cow to power its electricity generation and development of its nuclear arsenal.
And of course President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s sudden romance with Paris is reason enough to trigger suspicion that the displacement isn’t an ordinary happenstance.
The terrorists, are not on a mere siege, to establish presence on a conquered territory for fun. They’re sponsored to destabilize and traumatize communities to give room for unfettered access to mineral deposits.
The affected villages and towns so far placed under siege by the marauding gunmen, and Jega being the commercial hub of Kebbi State must not be allowed to fall in the hands of terrorists.
The principal duty of any government is the protection of its citizens from harm.
Although it is acknowledged that foreign direct investment is sure way to uplift the people.
This must not be done at the expense of the lives of the affected who have been forced to abandon their homes and means of livelihoods.
