By Suleiman Umaru
Tukur Buratai a Lt. General and Chief of Army Staff, CAS, appears to have given a major security assignment to Magaji Bichi, the Director General of the Department of State Security, DSS, and Abubakar Adamu, acting Inspector General of Police, IGP, to unravel those aggrieved politicians in Zamfara state and the other states in the
Buratai who has been involved in prosecuting the Islamic
”I want to believe that what is going on in the north west was a fallout of the just concluded general election”, CAS had said. He insists that the aggrieved politicians are the ones sowing the seed of bitterness between farmers and herders as well as arming the bandits in Zamfara state.
Note that he had repeatedly said that the killings and kidnappings going in the north west , have political undertones. Musa Daura , a retired Comptroller of Federal Operations Unit, FOU, Zone A, and , who is the Magajin Garin, a district Head and next to the Emir of Daura, in the chain of traditional Authority, President Muhammadu Buhari home town in Katsina state is never a politician but was recently kidnapped by suspected gunmen and had not been rescued by security operatives despite the marching order given to them security agencies , to find him and bring criminal elements to book.
The criminal elements may have made things difficult for the security operatives to get clue of where they keeping him hostage by refusing to reach out to the family members to make their demand for ransom for fear of being tracked by security operatives who are combing everywhere in the state and
The question on the lips of most
Political watchers describe the reason volunteered by Buratai as being responsible for the banditry in the north west as a lay man excuse as there could not be said to be any aggrieved politicians in Katsina who are threatening fire and brime stone for losing election in the state.
This is because everybody in state seems to have identified with the President and the APC , going by the millions of votes garnered in the state during the election. ”Buhari is our tingod”, an resident of Daura said.This is where Buratai, the CAS, may have to look for another reason to give to gullible Nigerians about why Banditry are on the rise in the north west in the recent time, Ikechukwu Ekwem, a Lagos based analyst had said.
The truth of the matter, he said was that the Army have not really invested on intelligence gathering by working with the locals in order to get to the root of the matter to be able to deal decisively with the bandits. Note There is no gainsaying the fact that if Buratai who had repeatedly harped on intelligence gathering had invested on it over the last four years as the CAS , the ”security challenges of the country” would have been a thing of the past. But they allowed the bandits to buy over the villagers by giving them peanuts to extract information from them on the movement of the troops.
The reason given by the Army General for the banditry in the north west, according to sources, is at variance with the reason defied by the Centre for Democratic Development and Training, CEDERT for the persistent attack on villages by the bandits in the north west.
The group had revealed that that it was bandits from countries that share borders with Nigeria in the particular, Niger and Cameroun , that are responsible for the attacks in Zamfara, which have spread to other states in the north west including Katstina, the President home state.
The group had justified its reason based on its findings in Dansadau, Sabuwa and Birnin in Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna states. Only recently, the bandits entered Wagani , a village in Batsari local government Area of Katsina state with little or no resistance from the indigenes by shooting sporadically to scare the people and setting ablaze houses and cars belonging to the people. One person was said to have fell to the bandits bullet and three others injured. but Abduljalal Haruna Runka, a Lawmaker representing Safana Constituency said 17 people were killed by the bandits in the attack which started at Gobirawa village and spread to Sabawa and other villages.
Political Observers see it as a reprisal attack on the village following allegations that the villagers had leaked out information about their activities in the area to security operatives, described as a betrayal of trust, fueling speculation that the people may have been working with the bandits over the years to scuttle government efforts to end the crisis in the region.
The Army believe the bandits are hiding in the forest in the north west to carry out their nefarious attack in the states. This may have informed why they have banned motor cyclists from coming close to the forest in the seven northern state of Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kano, Jigawa and Kebbi including Niger, in north central geo-political region to avoid information about military plans leaking out .
In spite of the ban, the bandits have continued to infilterate the ranks of Bastsari local government to attack the villages despite the Camping of the Police Puff Adder at strategic locations in the Area. This may have informed why the President requested to know what the security Chiefs are doing to caught the wings of the bandits and kidnappers who are making mockery of the security situation in the country at a recent closed door meeting upon his return from a private trip to the United Kingdom, UK.
Ibok Ekwe