By Shuaibu Gimi
Shuaibugimi1966@gmail.com
The continuous blood spillage in most parts of Northern Nigeria to which colossal endowments are regularly lost is a frightening reality that rudely unsettles all concerned minds. Either as kidnappers, bandits or some other kind of violent criminals, non-state actors have literarily taken over the land to the extent that in a lot of places they dictate the terms on which governments and communities operate.
Killings across all segments of the population, infrastructure deficit in most environments as well as absence of relevant skills and required financial capability among even the huge able-bodied youths are always the issues on which talkshops are regularly organised. Such events are usually characterised by presentations by resource persons, testimonies by witnesses and narration of ordeals by victims, all of which easily culminate in arguments over the causes, dimensions and scopes of the various forms of violence from which the North severely suffers.
The recent government-citizens engagement session organised by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation in Kaduna, which was attended by most of the key federal government officials of northern extraction, some Northern states governors as well as a lot of prominent northern groups and individuals was both a proof of the severity of the challenges and also another example of the usual approach of the stakeholders to the protracted crises crippling the North. Just like what happened during the previous such events, complaints over the situation were strongly voiced out by some of the concerned participants, achievements recorded in the fight against criminality were boastfully mentioned by the government officials and the need for stronger collaboration among the stakeholders was generally stressed.
The central and most significant message in all the exchanges at the session was an acknowledgement of the fact that the North, having been a theatre of killings, kidnappings and banditry is already disoriented, disfigured and bloodied. Since 2009 when Boko Haram insurgency reared its ugly head and especially with the appearance and escalation of the other violent crimes, human lives and dignity have lost their preciosity.
As the 2027 General Elections approach, the debate over all the key issues about the insecurity understandably gets hotter, with each side trying to prove its preferred points. It really pains the real victims that most of the efforts towards the de-escalation of the violence appear more in debates than in concrete solutions.
Insecurity in the North has been a campaign issue since 2011 and continuously becomes more so, simply because it has not been addressed by the very people who, either as a government or an opposition, vowed to deal with it. All the achievements said to have been recorded is a representation of just a tiny fraction of the results that the much-touted counter-terrorism measures should have produced.
The North, as a geo-political expression that is perennially being stained by the blood of its own people, is shedding the same kind of tears it shed prior to 2023 General Elections, which President Bola Tinubu must have noticed when he interacted with the Arewa Joint Committe in October 2022 in Kaduna as part of the engagement between the people of the North and some of the major presidential candidates. He should worry that the reasons for the tears have consistently been the same since he became the country’s leader and consequently raise the level of his commitment to the resolution of the identified crises.
