Rotimi Fasan
The upsurge in banditry, kidnapping and armed robbery that culminated with the killing of three monarchs and abduction of school children and their teachers in Ekiti State is a dangerous sign of what may have been the orchestration of persons and groups bent on causing acrimony not only in different parts of the country but particularly in the South-Western part of Nigeria.
In the last ten years or thereabout, especially in the eight years of the Mohammadu Buhari administration, time during which sundry criminalities took over different parts of the country, the South-West has enjoyed relative peace. It’s been the only region free from the long and unhindered reign of criminals.
The South-West has been the only oasis in a desert of insurgency, wanton and destructive banditry. It has enjoyed peace where other parts of the country have been burning in the cauldron stoked by outlaws. The peace in the South-West was purchased at great price and there were times when the peace was breached, disturbed by criminal elements that had apparently infiltrated the region from other parts. These were the times when kidnappers and bandits alongside suspected Boko Haram operatives launched attacks that led to the destruction of life and property on a mass scale in the South-West.
They were attempts to strike fear and uncertainty in the minds of the people by creating an air of insecurity in the only part of the country yet free from the sustained reign of terrorists called fanciful names. Some of the more memorable of the attacks included the murder of Mrs. Funke Olakunrin, a daughter of Pa Reuben Fasoranti, a leader of the Yoruba group, Afenifere. This was the infamous where-are-the-cows episode which smeared and all but ruined the political fortune of the current president, Bola Tinubu. The attack on the St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo during which many worshippers were killed in cold blood is another instance of these attempts at disrupting the peace of the South-West.
The so-called herders and farmers clashes in parts of Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, particularly in Igboho, which was triggered by isolated but persistent attacks on farmers and their families by suspected Fulani herders-turned marauders and which culminated with the Sunday Igboho-led reprisal attack is yet another instance of these series of seemingly coordinated attacks on the South-West. Both the people and their leaders rallied together and on each occasion offered appropriate responses to the activities of the outlaws who tried in vain to muddy the peaceful river of co-existence that flowed in the region. Ultimately, the attackers were stopped in their strides and the people of the South-West triumphed.
In the last few weeks, however, there has been a setback in the achievement of the South-West in terms of the security of lives and properties. The criminal elements that had in time past operated sporadically are back in full force. They have launched what would amount to a series of attacks that have all the bearing of a professionally executed hit man job, something planned to deliver a profound impact. It may not be clear how much of this is a fall-out of the outcome of the 2023 election, the sense of aggrievement of the losers in that election, their supporters and the disillusionment of those who supported the winner of the election but are now disaffected and feel alienated enough to want to shake things up a bit by making the environment ungovernable. And what better place to start the execution of such scorched-earth policy than the South-West that had relatively remained untouched by most of the outlawry activities of bandits, insurgents, unknown gunmen and other murderous elements that rule the dark world of other parts of the country?
The goal of this, it would seem, is to create a leveller situation of sorts, an impression that no part of the country is safe or free from the menace of the anarchists that have made life unbearable for Nigerians. When the menace of physical violence, wanton and undiscriminating, is added to the confusion in the economy, food inflation that has gone out of hand, fall in the value of the naira, increase in the pump price of fuel, all factors that have impoverished Nigerians and left them no better than beggars in their own home, when all of these social, economic and political challenges are added to the mix, then the rout would have been completed.
Surely, the present government can’t look good in these circumstances. Rather, what this does is add to the mass discontent in the land and the sense of estrangement that many people now feel towards the Tinubu administration. If there is anything that government has to do now, it is to get on its feet and try to regain the goodwill of those Nigerians who trusted in its ability to deliver on the promises it made to them during the campaigns. Right now, it has not lived up to expectation for reasons that are not entirely its fault. All we hear are admonitions that Nigerians should be patient where the elite are the only people still able to say or see anything worth praising or hoping for in this government. The situation is nowhere helped by the apparent medical trips the president embarks upon to Paris every now and then. He can’t be doing this when the country is restive. Nigerians will neither eat promises nor slake their thirst on hopes.
For those who see this anguished moment of the people as one in which to stoke the fire of insurrection, may they be reminded that when the fire comes it would leave none of them free? For obvious reasons, the two best losers in the election that brought Tinubu into office have been increasingly voluble, attacking the economic policies of the administration and the inadequacies of the security measures that the government has put in place to address the concerns of the beleaguered people of this country. This is part of the duty of an opposition. Except that theirs appears like an attempt to rally disaffected Nigerians for a “revolution” that would spare neither those in government and other members of their political class now temporally in opposition.
Other than to steer the Tinubu administration in the direction of initiating and executing policies that could effect immediate turnaround in the present situation of Nigerians, demanding that state governors and local government chairs do their part in ameliorating the plight of Nigerians at this time and not fixating on Tinubu, attempts by the opposition to fish in the troubled waters of Nigerians’ plight will end up blowing in the face of all. What we need now are statesmen not politicians looking for the next votes.
*Vanguard
