KADUNA BANDITRY: The Vindication Of El-Rufai – Ethnic Bigots Want Their Bandits Freed!

By Cham Faliya Sharon

The same people lying against El-Rufai over banditry or insecurity in Kaduna State are the very same ones now seeking the release of the murderous bandits he caused to be arrested and prosecuted while he was Governor, simply because the bandits are members of their religion or indigenes of their tribes. Their new propaganda now is, they want the world to believe that banditry or terrorism is the exclusive vocation of a particular people or a particular religion but not their’s, as such, they want their bandits released from jail simply because they are in the “correct tribe and religion” that does not practice banditry.

To be clear, these convicted mass murderers were arrested after a very sweeping federal investigation over how they were blocking a federal highway that passes through their communities, during which they would waylay motor vehicles, drag out all the passengers, and then kill them in very gruesome ways, which is the same kind of pattern that used to occur in some communities straddled along the Jos – Abuja federal highway. Sometimes, they embark on these murders whenever they hear about some crisis elsewhere for which they think they have a duty to exact revenge for “their” people.

By so doing, they always murder lots of innocent people and turn travels on those roads a living hell. During those times, the roads get blocked, and a journey of one hour could stretch to 6 hours or 12 hours or even more, that is, if you are even fortunate to make it alive. Sometimes, journeys are even cancelled, or an alternative longer route will be followed to avoid the murderers on the blocked highway. As you can see, no responsible government will allow that.

For those kinds of communities in Kaduna State, as part of his solutions to the recurring problem, Governor Nasir El-Rufai threatened to relocate them farther away from any Expressway or Highway in the interest of the general public, especially the innocent travellers who were always their victims. The threat worked because such incidents became rare for as long as he remained governor, and the security agencies that investigated those murderous road ambushes arrested many of the perpetrators of the unprovoked murders. In the end, the courts recently found them guilty through processes that guaranteed them access to lawyers and fair hearings.

Now that they have been found guilty, they are adding their guilt to the catalogue of their endless grievances against Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. They are now waging a barrage of propaganda of lies that they were simply arrested and prosecuted by El-Rufai for protecting their communities from bandits. Please, don’t laugh. These are people who were investigated by federal investigators, and who were presented with evidence of their complicity in court, and who all had lawyers arguing their case, but are now blaming El-Rufai for their guilty convictions in court more than two years after he was no longer in any way attached to their court case.

As usual, they have even added an international dimension to their propaganda, that they were being persecuted on religious grounds because they were defending their communities from bandits, which makes you wonder how constantly blocking highways, killing travellers, robbing them of their possessions and setting their vehicles ablaze will amount to community defence? By the way, this is exactly what bandits do in places where they operate. They also block highways, rob travellers, seize some travellers for ransom, and then set their vehicles ablaze and then wait for their next opportunity. What makes them think their own killings are of no legal consequence than the killings done by other bandits?

As a nation, we will keep moving only in circles about this problem of insecurity as long as we keep on deceiving ourselves with lies, and believing that only one side or the other is responsible for the problem. Conflict entrepreneurs hate Mallam Nasir El-Rufai with passion, especially after he said the only repentant bandit is a dead one. His idea is to wipe them off completely from the surface of the earth, even if it means having collateral damages in communities that host them.

As a big money-making business, banditry will not end as long as some people make money from it, either by gulping donations from abroad and locally as victims or by being active participants in the banditry itself. There are also the political beneficiaries who wouldn’t want it to end for two reasons: (1) the huge security budgets that are usually unaccounted for, and (2) their desire to use it as a tool to blackmail their political opponents with lies.

For a man like Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, who excelled in his entire public offices, especially his unmatchable successes as Governor of Kaduna State in spite of steady, virulent opposition from bigots within the state and outside the state, he is bound to be a constant object of attack from those who hate and envy him because he dared to succeed as governor in spite of their hatred for him, including those who fear his rising political capital after they thought he was going to be silent and buried politically after they betrayed him.