What do we do next?
Many of us grew up hearing the Hausa saying ‘karfin hali, barawo da sallama’ ie ‘It’s a display of brazen courage when a thief says the salam before he breaks in.’ However, going by what’s making headlines these days, it’s no longer a saying, it’s the reality.
Though we can’t be sure whether today’s thieves, gunmen and bandits actually make the salam before they strike, but the brazen way they reach their victims; at home, in the mosques, on their farms, at their offices and on the highway, shows that they no longer fear anything or anyone in the pursuit of their dastardly deeds.
The young bride-to-be, in Jigawa state might not make it back in time for her wedding, which is due in less than a fortnight. Her abductors, who went right to her father’s home to kidnap her, were yet to even contact the family on what their demands are. The family is only left terrified and praying for her safety.
Kidnappers of the Zamfara
Imam, who was abducted during Friday prayers along with 18 others, have asked to be paid two million naira per head for their release. How those villagers can raise this much money to pay as ransom is the one million naira question.
We’ve all heard about the polytechnic lecturer and the ABU staff who were both abducted at their quarters within their respective campuses and right in the presence of university security men. How much worse can this get?
The news from the highway only got worse within this same period. Nine Ahmadu Bello University students got kidnapped, serving police officers got waylaid and abducted. A first-class traditional ruler got shot and killed on his way home from a journey, and the lastest of them all, coming in yesterday evening, was the abduction of the wife of the chief of staff to Ondo State governor.
All the incidents above are apart from the fate of thousands of villagers who are bleeding from bandit attacks; which are also getting more daring and frequent. And yet no one has resigned, indeed no one is even thinking of resigning from among the men entrusted with the security of our lives and property. From the inspector-general of police to the chief of defence staff, the question of taking responsibility for the horrible state of our internal security does not even arise.
Indeed what we see as an unprecedented case of security failure is seen among these people as nothing out of the ordinary. This is why one service chief had the time and leisure to take a second wife, while another service chief had the peace of mind to give his daughter a talk-of-the-town wedding.
They are obviously pursuing their personal agendas with no sense of the death and gloom that victims of banditry and kidnapping have to live with.
In the dying days of the Jonathan administration, when the new-improved Boko Haram was wreaking havoc in the North-East, we used to wonder how they struck at towns and villages and spent hours killing, looting and maiming, without any of our government’s security outfits apprehending them.
Today that scenario is being played all over again but mainly in the North-West. These so-called bandits operate for hours without anyone apprehending them and the same goes for the ubiquitous gunmen who regularly rear their deadly heads to assassinate their prominent victims.
With no one to take responsibility for this disastrous state of affairs and no obvious political will to end it decisively, the only thing left for the rest of us is to wonder what to do next, now that we are left to our devices.