Governments at various levels should consider job creations as an emergency that must be curbed through diverse and well-coordinated initiatives so that hapless Nigerians should not be subjected to global terror recruitment.
It’s in the words of Taussig, a thriving “culture of terror, space of death”! While Arendt called it “banality of evil”, Basaglia refers to it as a “peace-time crime”. Scheper’s use of “invisible genocide” stands the right description of the tightening ‘reef-knot’ of insecurity particularly in the areas affected by network underlodge. Disconnecting the network is a forlorn attempt with predictable consequences. It’s a schematised crime at the midst of growing despair and humiliation that has no resemblance whatsoever with the President’s craven utterance of ‘declining insecurity’!
While sitting on the Maulid Live at Funtua, I have heard reports and complaints from people including the renowned clerics dismissing the dislodge of the network imposed by Katsina State Government, that it amounts to nothing but killings, kidnappings and destructions of properties. Coincidentally at that very moment, I was holding today’s Leadership Newspaper (19th October, 2021) and I came to a report (on page 7), where Mr. President is praising our gallant soldiers for their undulating effort towards containing the insurgencies. In the newspaper, he’s reported to have said that … [now that the security agencies are hardworking], prefixes like “rising insecurity” should be replaced with “declining insecurity”.
PMB’s remark while addressing the public on the evergreen memorials of the Holy Prophet Birthday (Maulid), is a cheap talk-shop that any responsible leader would not want to deliver to the public ears. Rising insecurity under the banality of network restrictions is a recent continuum that cannot be easily separated from the dialect of State organized violence and criminality! Its future long-standing consequences couldn’t be easily undone by a simple statement like that. The bad tempered reportage sweetly tonged onto the governments’ ears by the bunch of underhands—Naira-worshipping journalists, propagandists and agent provocateurs alike, belies so many of the inflictions caused by the missing network coverage. It’s a bold lie to report that network disconnection improves the security conditions of peoples in Zamfara and Katsina states.
There has been no improvement since the imposition of the network about seven weeks in Zamfara state and more than three weeks by now in areas of Funtua—and the rest of other southern districts of Katsina. There has been no sincere report about the results of the time-tested network restriction strategy. The bad sides of it have been misrecognized and underreported. The areas affected are becoming ‘gray zones’ of genocidal violence—muted by the fogs of communication unrest. Insecurity in the face of genocidal killings and crimes is in the eye of the beholder—never have killings become worse with a whirling vortex of attacks like the times covered by the ‘paused-network frama’.
Many villages are not only increasingly becoming ungoverned but also red-danger districts, and the roads linking them with other places along the Katsina-Zamfara axis have become death-traps. The routes as well, linking the villages with the bandit dens right into the forest camps are also increasingly falling under the ‘masters-of-the-routes’! In the two axis connecting Zamfara and Katsina i.e. Tsafe—Faskari—Yankara—Daudawa—Sheme—and Funtua; and that of Sheme—Ruwan Godiya—and M/Kankara, indiscriminate killings, theft of cattle, seizing and crashing of farmlands, burning of crops and mosques, lynching and kidnapping of men, women and children continue unabated—with a speed and tempo that has never been seen prior to the closure of the networks!
These poised human species walk through the villages with spanking eye-brows, haughtiness and arrogance—having felt no sense of deterrence to attack, kill, maime and kidnap in broad daylight!
People in these areas, as well as the rest of other victims across the North, shouldn’t’ lose the ears of the President, they shouldn’t lose the ears of Governor Masari and the rest of other Governors in the region. When they’re killed no one has the network to report. When they’re kidnapped and taken away to horror zones, no one could be reached or contacted. When they’re attacked no one has the network to call for help. Not least their properties, houses, farmlands and crops, which no one could notice when they’re burnt.
When they become short of any idea and cry out, everything falls on deaf ears!
The recent mass kidnapping of about 50 people in Kanon-Haki/Tudun Malamai villages, some few meters to Maraban Daudawa—on the Funtua—Tsafe (Sokoto) road, is one justification that network disconnect brings more harm than harmony. The killing and burning of properties and farmlands in Unguwar Sarki, some few kilometers west-ward from Scheme, is of course, another. Similarly, the recent onslaught that led to the killing of about 10 soldiers in Unguwar Wanzamai, Funtua, is not a game of peek-a-boo!
Isn’t it freaking that the community couldn’t have been so sympathetic about their killings? It is, indeed yes! But the bulk of the security agencies are politicised; quite a number of them are corrupt; many are accomplice and partial. In the wider arc of the circumference, they’re, as it’s alleged, meant to watch over and guard the criminal operation of primitivity, savagery, and barbarism!
Like the ‘angel babies’ of Northeast Brazil or the Ameri-Indians (Miskitu), people in these areas are increasingly facing hastened deaths from the soul-less, and god-damning half-grown sons of the State-initiated local death squads—the invisible genocidos! The atomic bombs of poverty, hunger and destitution have caused a deepening social intolerance, hatred, growing circumspection and mistrust among the mass poor. Constant disruptions of family lives, hampered agricultural production, market blockade and disruption of economic activities have caused a marked pallid of starvation, food crisis and marked reduction in the household income. This is condemnable! We’re crying out for everyone to hear! Network disconnection has not done anything any good to anybody—individuals or groups living in these areas.
Network dislodge has never been a solution. Government should stop playing politics with the lives of the people and stick to addressing the challenges of the security situation facing the nation. It should build courage, trust and honesty among the larger citizenry; instill discipline and responsibility among security agencies and give them the order to squarely operate and discharge their duties. Government should shoulder the arduous task of restoring the dignity and pride of this nation, do away with the win-win politics of defeating this or that and keep in mind, with all intent and purpose, the pressure of resolving the years-old contiguous crimes intensified by the widening porousity of borders and the proliferation of heavy arms and ammunitions.
Governments at all levels should dedicate themselves to amending the necessary agricultural and forest policies and build hopes in the minds of the forest communities through the provision of healthcare and veterinary facilities, as well as the revitalization of nomadic institutions including children and adult education.
Governments at various levels should consider job creations as an emergency that must be curbed through diverse and well-coordinated initiatives so that hapless Nigerians should not be subjected to global terror recruitment.
Government should be all-inclusive to all the above; more than the above and include everything; leave nothing and save everything from the marauding politics of the invincible crew who tore the national coffer apart. Security agencies should be decentralized and monitored with all the ‘angel eye’. Judges should be granted the autonomy to adjudicate with the fullest implications of the law—prove the right and wrong and administer punishment on criminals and perpetrators of violence and insurgency at the stipulated time provided by the Constitution.
‘Re-lodge the Network’ is the shooter of the protest all are crying for, and of course, what this article stands for, and indeed advocates for its mantra.
