No fewer than 1,930 Nigerians have been killed by gunmen this year while 582 people have been kidnapped by non-state actors.
LEADERSHIP Weekend also reports that 561 people have been killed between March 2023 to April 13, 2023 while at least over 200 Nigerians have been kidnapped for ransom within the same period.
Reports show that in January 2023, Nigeria recorded 375 incidences of security breaches resulting in 208 abductions and 749 fatalities
However, in February 2023, the nation recorded 452 attacks resulting in 173 abductions and 620 fatalities.
While they seemed to be a reduction in the number of terrorist attacks in the build-up to the 2023 general elections, there seems to be a resurgence of the menace after the polls.
Senator Shehu Sani reacting to the development said Nigeria is the only place where people are killed and those in government join the electorates to pray for solutions.
He said, “Nowhere in the whole of Africa is there a place where 125 people are killed and 80 were kidnapped in 60 days, according to official figures, other than in Kaduna. The leaders elected to solve the problem have joined the electorates in prayers for God to solve the problem”.
Amidst the killings, the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) has asked the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS); the African Union (AU), and the United Nations (UN) to intervene to halt the incessant killings in Southern Kaduna, Kaduna State.
LEADERSHIP Weekend reports that gunmen penultimate Sunday invaded Sankwab in Atyap Chiefdom in the Zangon Kataf Local Government Area of the state, killing more than 20 villagers and destroying property valued at millions of naira.
The SOKAPU leadership said the people of the area had lost confidence in the Nigeria government and therefore called on the international community to intervene before it was too late
SOKAPU president, Mr Awemi Maisamari, stressed that the call on international communities for action became necessary since the home government had allegedly failed to protect the citizens.
In like manner, Benue State for instance suffered over 400 casualties to herders attacks in the last three weeks as hostilities also resumed in Kaduna, Niger, and Zamfara States.
The Kindred head of Ucha, Zaki John Akpan while speaking with LEADERSHIP Weekend accused soldiers of supervising killings of his subjects by armed herders.
He, therefore, called for the withdrawal of soldiers and deployment of mobile police personnel and Civil Defence Corps in the area to protect citizens which is the government’s primary responsibility.
“If the government wants to help this nation, the government should withdraw soldiers back to the barracks and then deploy Mopol and civil defence”.
He dismissed insinuations that the attacks are fueled by the anti-open grazing law promulgated by the State government in 2017.
“What happened here, people are attributing to anti-grazing law but we that are here don’t see it as anti-open grazing law. What is happening in Kaduna, Taraba, and other states? What are they saying there are also killings there. They say they have deployed security at these places, I’m not challenging them but these problems are persisting. I wonder why insecurity persists despite the presence of security personnel.
“We’ll inform them that this is where those guys are but nothing happens. Armed herders said we are eating their cattle but here in Ngban where they came to kill 37 people. No cattle was touched here by anybody, three days before the attack, they came to graze around our houses with their guns. Soldiers will see them with guns but say nothing.
“On the day of elections, herders killed 12 persons at Tse Alaar, next day they attacked Yelewata, and they later killed somebody at Udei who went to the stream to have his bath. After that they came to Tse Ikyogen and opened people’s houses and brought out yam seedlings for their cattle to eat, same thing happened at Tse-Iho when we reported to soldiers, they told us not to disturb the herders that they will look into it.”
He said while the distance between Ngban and Keana is about 50 km, there was nobody in the bushes but the land was not enough for the armed herders who want to kill everybody in Benue.
“Now for your information about 50km away from Ngban towards Keana, there is nobody in the bush but they don’t graze there. It is here where the people run to for safety that they want to graze and then accuse us of rustling their cattle.
“I just feel the herders have a different agenda. Talking about the anti-open grazing law, nobody has asked herders to leave Benue, the government only asked them to ranch. They have laws in some states that prohibit alcohol and others and people obey. Why can’t they obey Benue law? In the recent attack, we recovered 36 bodies while 38 persons were injured. One of the injured persons also gave up making the figure of casualties 37. They burnt a vehicle and two motorcycles at the district head’s compound, burnt a thatched house with yam seedlings and as they withdrew, they were killing people” he said.
In Niger State, a local vigilante group at Ibbi town has taken the battle to the invaders of the community, killing no fewer than 50 bandits who had been terrorising and kidnapping its residents for ransom.
LEADERSHIP Weekend learned that the vigilantes launched the attack on the bandits and destroyed their camps at the bottom of a mountain within Kainji National Park, following the abduction of 12 people from the community about two weeks ago.
A source from the community said the vigilante group, with support from their colleagues from Niger South, went after the bandits in a raid. During the raid, the vigilantes were said to have lost two of their men, while the bandits killed nine of the 12 people in captivity.
The director, Defence Media Operations, Major General Musa Danmadami, briefing journalists recently attributed the spike in kidnapping to the reversal of the cashless policy and called for an all-of-society approach to end violent attacks and killings in the country.
“There must be societal and government approach. I don’t want to say categorically clear but we are all aware that before now, the cash crunch, they kidnap anybody and there is no cash to pay, the criminals have to make use of the fact that there is no cash and unfortunately with the reversal of the policy-making cash available, the criminals have the impetus to do what they are doing, though I know that there is still some elements of cash crunch going on.
“We are equally faced with the problem of cash crunch however, I want to assure you that the Military, we are still doing our job, we have not rested. Op safe conduct which was conducted towards the successful conduct of elections to support police and INEC has come and gone, we are all aware that there are still two states where elections are still going to be conducted, so we are still not resting on our oars.
“The military is still working round the clock to make sure there is peace and security in the country. During the briefing, we told you the number of people who have been kidnapped and we equally told you about the efforts of the military to ensure those kidnapped victims are rescued, so we’ll continue to carry out our responsibility to the best of our knowledge while calling on the civilian populace to support us.”
A public and private security analyst and trainer, Major Banjo Daniel (retired) said the failure of security agencies to end the killings could be the body language of the Commander in Chief.
He said it could probably be a result of the orders they receive that hinders them from attacking the armed herders
“It is probably the orders they receive, as far as I’m concerned the country is already more like a criminal state, we have accepted criminality of all forms. It didn’t just start today, it started long ago.
“Our troops are capable and I’m still saying that the Army is capable of dealing with any insurgency. If the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lt Gen Faruk Yahaya has received instructions to end these terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, and others if he has received such instructions and is sitting there now then he should go to jail for incontinence, incapacity to perform assigned duties.
“I want to believe that he has not received such instructions directly that go and end these killings. I also think the President must step up the will to end these killings,” he said.
The secretary general, International Institute of Professional Security (IIPS), Dr. Abdullahi Mohammed Jabi, while calling on citizens to be security conscious also called for a rejig of security architecture in the State to end senseless killings.
He lamented that it was rather unfortunate that the killings are becoming perpetual and only pronounced in Benue.
He wondered why the reckless killings in Benue are dominant from all the states in the middle belt.” Why is Benue the theatre of war? Is like we are running out of strategic thinking and we need to rejig the security architecture and contain the threats and the citizens must be up and doing.
“These figures are human beings, the attackers are human beings, they must look at their trademark, they are not coming in as ghosts so they must be able to look at their trademark, their activities, within five days 105 people were killed in different communities in three local government areas so it’s unacceptable.
“There may be complacency and conspiracy theories going on there for obvious reasons of whether the past posture of the governor when he was on the saddle and now that he is about to leave. Nevertheless, the citizens must be security conscious, and deploy more security personnel that are not of the conceptual Fulani or Northern extraction there to avert compromise, if we get other tribes and other professionals there, maybe the narrative will change other having dominant forces in both the criminals and the anti criminals,” he said.
