Banditry: No sacred cow, lingering docility will be costly
Banditry in Nigeria has become an albatross sparking the stimulus of panic in the Country. The graduation of the menace from a nomadic-like formation of mischievous cliques unleashing gruesome attacks on settlements of farming communities to a phenomenon of colossal mayhem, has evolved with expanding strings which recently have thrown the Country into another dirge of lamentations with deepened profile of insecurity. With the clogs of its entanglements taking clustered stretches across the North-west, the menace has thrown the region recently off the balance of security, while its entanglements to other parts of the Country keep posing threats of deeper resonance of insecurity against peace, order, and safety.
The degree of the expanding strings of the menace appears to be assuming stronger dimensions with new targets to extend the list of soft spots in the Country. While farmers were known to have been exposed to the risk of armed herdsmen who are known to poise their terror in the bandits’ style of operations, it is now clear that the docility that was exhibited by the Government to proscribing armed herdsmen who had brought the reign of terror on farmers and their settlements, can be traced as the foundation that gave the courage for more mischievous elements to form bandit groups to unleash terror extensively with little or no fear of nemesis. The argument by the critical school over the position rest on the fact that the quiet posture of the Government towards proscribing armed herdsmen who flaunt their weapons with readiness to attack natives of farming communities upon any challenge of their encroachment on farmlands, was a ticket of encouragement for armed wielding charlatans to form terror groups to inflict pains on communities for cheap gains.
It is now apparent that the untamed claws of their misadventure had graduated from mere attacks and reprisal attacks to kidnap-for-ransom, with impacts eating voraciously into the fabrics of the entire formation of the Country. At the stretch to which the strings are extending, it is apparent that gradually, no one may be a sacred cow of the danger that the menace poses to communities in the Country. On Sunday, it was reported how some bandits in separate attacks killed three persons, including a pilot, in two Local Government Areas of Kaduna North and Kajuru, Kaduna State. The pilot, Captain Abdukkarim Bala Na’Allah, said to be the eldest son of Senator Bala Na’Allah, representing Kebbi South Senatorial seat in the Senate and former Deputy Majority leader in the Eighth Senate, was killed by the hoodlums in his Malali (GRA) residence in Kaduna North Local Government Area on Sunday. An aide to the Lawmaker, Malam Garba Mohammed, who confirmed the killing of the trained pilot, in a statement trending on social media, was quoted: “Suspected Kaduna Bandits Kill Captain Abdulkarim Bala Na Allah, the first Son of Senator Bala Na’Allah, in his Malali GRA Residence Kaduna today.”
On narratives of the other attacks in Kajuru, it was said that the bandits invaded the Makoro Iri Village in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna States and killed two persons. It was gathered that the bandits who stormed the village had shot indiscriminately in an unfortunate event that recorded the killings of two persons Saturday night.
The narrative of the tingling reports of the daily escapades of bandits with heinous infliction of pain on innocent citizens, is moving to the edge of disorder where the Country to a larger extent is dovetailing towards the approximation of anarchy. The need for the Government to take the campaign against the menace in the Country to a height of a heavy clampdown, has become non negotiable, particularly now that the ravaging impacts appear to spare no one a sacred cow. Attempts of bandits to attack convoys of Governors in some Nothern States have been taking reoccurring turn. The signals of the piping taking toll in the South-east recently, leaves no note than the arrows of extending strings with effrontery to confront constituted authorities.
It is now more reverberating that combing the forest to cut off the tentacles of banditry in the Country is still much under reachable length with concerted efforts. The prevailing conditions appear too costly to afford any more lingering docility of the Government. Such disposition may, by and large, leave nothing but the relics of catastrophic deformities with degeneration of insecurity into unmanageable conditions. To think of development under such heated situation becomes a facade. The prevailing situation therefore, calls for concerted efforts from all levels of government to tackle the menace, particularly with the necessity for the Federal Government to work with local authorities and their State Governments where the ravaging trend of banditry has become a deep seated menace of destabilisation, while duty lies on those still experiencing relative peace to watch their back.
