More revelations are coming to the lime light in respect of the operation of the asymmetric warfare levied on Nigeria by the bandits, the Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State of the West African Province, ISWAP.
Before now and but for the revelation of Sheik Gumi, Nigeria knew not that the operation of the Fulani bandits were all encompassing, engulfing all of the north western, north eastern and some part of Middle Belt of Nigeria.
In like manner, the level of the sophistication of these asymmetric warriors in intelligence gathering and networking within government circles were also hitherto underrated by Nigerians, if not for the revelation of Sheik Gumi.
Contrary to what Nigerians think, Sheik Gumi, a medical doctor and a well renowned Islamic scholar and cleric, may have experienced what I will call a humane prompting to solving the problem of banditry in Nigeria through digging deep into the remote causes of banditry in Nigeria. He made his contacts (especially within government circles where he said vast knowledge of bandits operations and hideouts are well known ) and went straight into the forest to meet face to face with the ring leaders and superior commanders of the bandits in one of the most interior parts of Nigeria.
In terms of the desire and the daring courage of the much respected Sheik to seek for amity between the government and some of her disgruntled citizens, I cannot fault the Sheik’s decision, though I would have other observations to register on this as I analyze his efforts.
The Sheik gave a graphic yet fearful record of his observations about the composition, internal structure and modus operandi of the bandits. Apart from letting Nigerians know that the bandits have a highly elaborate and organized command structure, he also revealed that they have a sophisticated armory beefed up with modern arsenals of war that are judiciously replenished by some agent of the bandits within the armed forces and government establishment as the inventory depletes.
According to Sheik Gumi, there are juvenile/child soldiers trained for different operations in including suicide bombing. There are also women who are not less regarded as they equally play all the roles usually assigned to their male counterparts.
More worrisome is the great number of foot soldiers available to banditry in Nigeria. By the estimation of the Sheik and his entourage, there were several thousands of these battle-ready foot soldiers spread around the environment where they were scheduled, re-scheduled and scheduled again, ( because they had floated a few phantom meeting points as decoy to misdirect a possible trail by intelligence officers) to meet the grand commander of bandits and his key officers.
For the audience of doubt, and to warn him of the inherent dangers in double crossing, he was made to understand there was several other thousands of the foot soldiers scattered around the vicinity of the forest who can be mobilized on a very short notice. He was also assured that these reserve soldiers were already put on red alert before the hierarchy of the bandits agreed to give the sheik an audience. These technical revelations was broadcast to Nigeria by the Professor who was in Sheik Gumi’s entourage.
After listening to the revelations of Sheik Gumi, I took a map of Nigeria and had a careful study of it.
Nigeria which was described by Reverend Reinhardt Bonnke, a German Christian evangelist, as sitting on the position of the trigger in the larger concept and picture of the continent of Africa as resembling a gun, is uniquely and aesthetically divided as rain forest and savannah regions by a symbolic alphabet ‘y’ which deriving and running down from both the east and west of the middle of the country as rivers Niger and Benue, streams down from its confluence in the centre and middle of the country to the Atlantic Ocean in a marriage of the two rivers which criss-cross the eastern part of the country and spirals down to the area of Nigeria known both as the south south and Niger Delta.
The picture simulated by me here which is the true and real geographical sketch of Nigeria is basically divided into North, Middle Belt and South. In the north are the north eastern and north western states. The north eastern state of Bornu is the grand theatre of war and epicenter of terrorism in Nigeria. Other states in the north eastern Nigeria are Yobe, Gombe, Bauchi, Adawama and Taraba. These other five states of the north east have experienced their good chunks of terrorists and bandits attacks over the years. For example, a good friend of mine from Bornu State, who is a very senior officer in a Federal government establishment in Abuja has not been to his ancestral village for more than ten years. He confided in me a few days ago that his aged mother is ill and he dares not go there lest the terrorist who monitor every movement in the area make a mincemeat of him. I asked him to send any of his younger brothers who can enter the village without attracting much attention.
The north western states comprises Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Jigawa, Kano and Kaduna. There has been different levels of terrorism and bandits operation in these states with Zamfara as the recognized, yet unofficial headquarters of banditry in Nigeria.
The Middle Belt states are Niger ,FCT, Nasarrawa, Plateau, Benue, Kogi and Kwara. Six of these seven states have witnessed pockets of bandits attack with more bandit activities registered in Niger state. Kwara, the remaining state here, may be said to be enjoying an uneasy calm, what I prefer to call ‘peace of the grave yard’. I will not have enough space here to explain what I mean by ‘peace of the grave yard’ in Kwara state, but I am sure some readers will be able to decipher the reasons themselves.
Lest I forget, the governor of Nasarawa state, Mohammed Sule recently bemoaned the development whereby his state is increasingly being infested with terrorists and bandits who find the state a safe heaven for their external operations. Who knows when they will begin to operate within the state. As a matter of fact, with the murder or assassination of the Christian indigene and the chairman of the APC party, and the abduction and death of a traditional ruler in the state, terrorism and banditry, nay the Fulani rubberstamp in present Nigeria , may well be said to have started in Nasarawa state.
Sometime ago, Dr Obadiah Mailafia had told Nigerians that both the Fulani herdsmen, the bandits and the Boko Haram are the same. As a matter of fact, bandits start off their heinous trade as herdsmen before they amass both population , weapons and organization and manifest a command structure that usually will align itself with an existing and established bandit group somewhere. Their internal and external network are well blended with each other and they are almost fool proof.
My analysis therefore is that the gradually increasing activities of the Fulani herds men in the remaining free part of Nigeria –South- where we have the south east , south west , and south south, is a predictable preparation to unleash a full scale banditry and terrorism in those places .
As I ruminated on what I was reading and deducing from the map of Nigeria on my reading\writing table, I had a complete view and fearful feeling of Nigeria being a country under siege.
So far, there have been mischievous attempts by the Fulani herds men to ignite the south east, south west and south south. These attempts to set these three remaining peaceful regions of Nigeria ablaze by the same group of people who metamorphosed to bandits and Boko Haram insurgents may not be unconnected with a possible plan to extend terrorism to these regions. I see the attempts as a soft and easy tactic of subtle entry, a military decoy reminiscent of the soft and easy entry of Queen Amina into the Palaces of some indigenous traditional rulers of the Middle Belt whose lends the Queen’s troups conquered effortlessly in military expeditions.
If history is anything to go by, the presence of Fulani herdsmen in the interiors of bushes across the nooks and crannies of Nigeria is the beginning of a process which will eventually turn out to be a full- scale war against the regions where those presences are maintained.
It will be mission accomplished for this nationwide expedition if these regions allow this process to complete because Nigeria will easily be overran by the combined forces of the herds men, the bandits, the Boko Haram and the ISWAP to the advantage of both the religion of Islam which is the common denominator binding their pursuits and the Fulani ethnic nationality which champions the efforts.
I would naturally think that the people in Nigerian government who are presently treating terrorists with kid gloves in manners suggesting encouragement, will not be opposed to that development if it does happen. Being direct beneficiaries, they will stand to gain by this development if it does happen.
The Kaleidoscope had once opinionated in a previous work that the search for perpetrators of a crime must go beyond the suspected and direct vendors of a crime to the comfort zone of indirect beneficiaries to the crime. This may be the subtle reason why some people in the government continues to hobbnobb with the terrorists.
To avert this ugly possibility, the south east, south west and the south south must do everything possible to insulate their territories / regions from penetration or where that has happened, to push aggressively to revert it in the manner presently being pursued in the expulsion of the Fulani herds men in their forests. The Middle Belt can join in this deliverance mission to achieve a clear up of Nigeria from that point in geographical location of Nigeria starting from the confluence of Rivers Niger and Benue downwards, to rid it of imported terrorism of expeditionists.
Furthermore, it is not a coincidence that the message from the statements of Sheik Gumi so far aligns with the known opinion of the Fulani in defence of both the herdsmen and the bandits. It also tallies with the opinion held by the current President which was made public by him on several occasion as a three time Presidential aspirant in Nigeria.
All events so far show that the Fulani militants or freedom fighters (as Sheik Gumi preferred to call the bandits and the kidnapper- herdsmen) are already waging a war against the rest of Nigeria. Nigeria as a country should therefore defend itself from this aggression, but this is unlikely to happen because the reins of political power is in the hands of the Fulani in Nigeria.
This throws up the questions:
- Why has the President, a Fulani man, against all advice to adhere to the Federal character principle, insisted in appointing his Fulani kinsmen to all the sensitive positions primary to the core issues of governance in Nigeria?
- Because there is a preponderance of people from the Fulani ethnic nationality in the government of Nigeria, is the Fulani government of Nigeria levying a war against the other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria?
The Bornu state governor, Babagana Zulum was recently reported to have said that the deradicalisation, rehabilitation and reintegration of the ‘repented’ Boko Haram terrorist into the society which was achieved through Operation Safe. Corridor or in 2016 by the Federal government has backfired.
According to him, the so called ‘repented’ Boko Haram members have all become informants to the terrorists. Nigerians have also watched in dismay as the government unwisely use the so called ‘repented’ terrorists as links to initiate negotiations and effect release of abducted school children.
The Kaleidoscope had once observed the non feasibility of re-integrating criminals who should be cooling off in prisons to the larger society. It is not in doubt that the ‘repented’ terrorists have found pleasure as well as a new profession as double-agents working for the government and their former groups. With this development, there is no end in sight for terrorism in northern Nigeria where I suspect that a secret budgetary allocation has been discreetly arranged by the federal government to pay ransoms to the terrorists.
Sheik Gumi did also say that the bandits are making efforts and will soon acquire missiles which are long-range weapons of destruction that may be targeted at Abuja or even Aso rock specifically, and the Nigerian government still find any reason for dialoguing, negotiating, and paying ransom to them.
Evidently, the bandits have known that they are the stronger party between themselves and the Federal government of Nigeria who pay ransoms to them. By negotiating with and paying ransoms to the bandits, the APC government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under the executive watch of the President, Mohammadu Buhari, has either negotiated or surrendered the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to an anonymous and amorphous group called bandits ravaging the country .It behoves on Nigeria lawyers to tell Nigerians if this obvious anomaly is an impeachable offense under the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended.
Being a layman, I assume that this is not consistent with the oath of office administered on Mr. president, which he took and swore by himself and by God to keep within the tenets of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the sovereignty he also swore to maintain.
Watching Sheik Gumi speak his mind, I had the feeling that he is an honest man, and a good Muslim who is not given to the rhetoric and double-speak of his Fulani politician brothers who condemned him, who may have the intention to conceal the truth from Nigerians about their conquering ambition that has gone awry. This is where I defer from many people about the person of Sheik Gumi. The summary of Sheik Gumi’s honest efforts (it does not matter whose bidding he was doing) is that the bubble got busted along the line of achieving their hitherto-held secret agenda for Nigeria which has become unrealizable because the other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria have been so much sensitized to be on their guards. Sheik Gumi’s effort was a face-saving mission done on behalf of the government who will not want to be seen openly negotiating with the bandits.
As a matter of fact, the now-botched attempt by the Fulani to effect a modern recolonisation of Nigeria in the 21st century is undoubtedly seeking for a safe and soft-landing, and people like the governor of Kaduna state, Mallam Nasir El Rufai whom they had precisely sent on what they thought to be a goose-chasing errand of drafting out a document to devolve powers to the states ( or regions as the case may be) are there handy to offer the escape route from the ill-fated agenda.
For this reason, I foresee the implementation of the half-baked bread (because it is inadequate for the present purposes of Nigeria) which is the draft document submitted by the committee which Mallam El Rufai chaired to the Fulani-controlled Federal Government of Nigeria who will want to implement it both as a palliative and lullaby to douse the anger of Nigerian ethnic nationalities, because that document offers the most tempting offer put together by them to maintain the Fulani grip on the central power in Nigeria.
Let us revisit the denial of the revelations of Sheik Gumi by a section of northern elders by asking the question: did the revelations of Sheik Gumi in any way portray the opinion of those northern Fulani elders on the issues that are on the table?
The answer is an emphatic ‘Yes’.
Previous utterances of many of those elders and the ‘body language’ of the Fulani- dominated government of Nigeria gives credence to the emphatic ‘yes’ answer.
With all the revelations of Shiek Gumi incriminating government and government officials, the government ought to have quickly ordered its security agencies to act by obtaining proofs to those grievous allegations against government officials and subject those officials fingered in the allegations to strenuous investigation. Nigerians found out that Sheik Gumi made more revelations then Obadiah Mailafia, yet the later was bounded by the DSS (Department of State Security), while the former who was seen doling out money to the bandits was never invited by any security agency.
If the stance suggested above was taken by the government, it naturally would have dissolved the growing feeling of connivance and complicity of the present government of Nigeria by Nigerians in the present war being levied across Nigeria and Nigerians by some element of the Fulani ethnic nationality in Nigeria.
Not until the government clears this thick cloud of suspicion and doubt across Nigeria, it will continue to be a suspect in the growing trend of herdsmen-kidnappers, bandits, and Boko Haram asymmetric warriors in Nigeria. Secondly, if the Fulani dominated government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria tarries in dissipating the present apprehension held by Nigerians in respect of the government relationship with the terrorists who cause mayhem to Nigeria and Nigerians, the belief across Nigeria that there is a Fulani secret agenda for Nigeria will be made more plausible.
TO BE CONCLUDEDED
ABUCHI OBIORA
abuchiobiora@gmail.com
FOR
Global Upfront Newspapers
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REMARK
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