Securing North-West: Isolating Kaduna may bear extensive reflections
Another attack in Kaduna State on Sunday, left a community leader named, Isiaku Madaki, killed in his residence at Kakura in Chikun Local Government Area. The malady came a day after he was installed on Saturday, 9th April, 2022. Report revealed the gunmen stormed the village in the early hours of Sunday while the euphoria of the installation ceremony of the community leader persisted. According to report, it was said the gunmen had the victim murdered in the presence of his wife and family. A reprisal attack was said to have left a number of other persons killed. While clashes in Kaduna is not new, it is now apparent that prevailing realities of insecurity reflections in the State have grown to assume dimensions of coordinated terror attacks recently.
A twin attack in Kaduna in less than 24 hours between Monday night, March 28 and Tuesday, March 29, 2022, saw the narratives of insecurity in the State assuming a dreadful dimension. A terrorists’ bomb attack Monday night, March 28, on an Abuja-Kaduna routed train had left a number of persons dead. It was gathered the Rigasa Train Station in Kaduna suffered the blast which was followed by gunshots leaving a number of persons killed, some missing, while the attackers left with many.
Reports of killings from recurring aggression have seen the State bearing the record of incessant attacks. It is essential that Kaduna is not isolated in the persistence of the killings which spates recently have become turbulent. The sensation of the crises in the State has the proclivity of metabiotic character, sending signals of extending fever to other parts of the Country.
It is no doubt that the socio-economic, political, and cultural impacts of the growing threats to the society are beyond what can be visibly quantified superficially, just as the psychological impacts of its reflections on citizens can travel too deep to raise diverse spread of deep-seated reactions. Among such reactions would be those that could sprout evoking dynamics of newer waves of disturbances. The more ill-disposed persons sense apparent looseness in the response of constituted authorities to criminal tendencies, the more they are emboldened to give a try to mischievous escapades.
The experiences of apparent docility in response to coordinated criminal threats at critical points, have grown to see terror-like actions conjoining to discomfit even security forces. It is now apparent that terror forces have grown to the height of flagrantly posing challenge to Nigeria’s military. Records now show terror groups posing effrontery to send attack notice to security architectures in the Country. The multiplying orientation of this effrontery began to take reflexes with the apparent silence-posture of the Government to neither firmly proscribe sets of people bearing criminal tendencies, nor develop responsively, stiff measures to clampdown and criminalise their activities. The condonation of the signals of terror, thus overtime, became an albatross now difficult to contain.
While Kaduna may largely not be the only State suffering the scourge of insecurity presently, it is observable that the growing spate of the mayhem in the State at a disturbing alarming rate, calls for concerted efforts. Hence, while it is understandable that other States have their respective jurisdiction to look after, it is also significant that it is not time to leave Kaduna isolated. Other States within the North-West region such as Kano, Jigawa, Kebbi, not presently largely affected but bearing close proximity to the State, may not be far from the metabiotic reflections of similar experience, if actions are not concerted to address the mayhem.
Bandit experiences in other North-western States as Katsina, Zamfara, and Sokoto, particularly for the first two, are known to have borne metabiotic reflections with contagious extension. Now that Kaduna is at the rising reflex of the heat, it is time to coordinate symbiotic efforts to address the turbulent wave. The choice of regional security architecture may not be out of place, while the Federal Government as the organ wielding the exclusive preserve of security forces in the Country must rise to its duties firmly.
