Your Excellency Sir,
Northern Nigeria has been enmeshed in two major crises for about a decade and a half. The first was Boko Haram, born and bred in the North East. From their confrontation with the police to the execution of their leader, Boko Haram grew to become a terror group unprecedented in Nigeria’s history. The most unfortunate thing is that Boko Haram associated themselves with Islam even though most of their heinous attacks were targeted at Muslims.
The failure of Goodluck Jonathan’s government to end the Boko Haram insurgency led to a consensus among Nigerians to disallow him from getting a second shot at the presidency. He lost the 2015 election to your friend and party member, General Muhammadu Buhari.
Throughout his campaign for the presidency, Buhari promised to end the scourge of Boko Haram and return normalcy to the North East. What he ignored, but he was not supposed to ignore, given his security background, was another crisis rearing its ugly head in the North West.
Non-Fulani Nigerians were setting up cattle farms in city suburbs and gradually establishing themselves in the cattle farming business, which the Fulani were known for. This did not go down well with some Fulani, who began to form groups to attack such farms and rustle the cows. Anyone who resisted was killed. Since such non-Fulani cattle farmers were relatively small in number, it was soon over with them, and cattle rustling was extended to fellow Fulani, most of whom were law-abiding.
In no time, cattle rustling turned into banditry and kidnapping. Armed chair analysts with little knowledge of what was on the ground began to create conspiracy theories. Some blamed it on Niger Delta militants. Others said it was foreigners from sister West African countries.
As of 2015, when President Buhari assumed office, the crisis could easily be nipped in the bud. A handful of cattle rustlers/bandits could easily be identified, arrested and punished. Unfortunately, Buhari did not do it either because he was not being correctly briefed or because he was out of sympathy for his kinsmen, who were the culprits.
In October 2016, some governors, notably of Zamfara and Katsina, invited the bandits’ leaders for a peace agreement. That was after they had killed countless numbers of innocent citizens. The villagers in the two states were told to accept the criminals as their brothers or face the wrath of the state. They had no choice.
The peace accord did not last long before the bandits resumed their crimes, which worsened by the day. Banditry continued to thrive under the Buhari administration, and in 2019, he directed the Governors of the affected states to dialogue with the bandits. The governor of my state of Katsina, looking vividly frustrated, told the bandits before press cameras that he was meeting them at the directive of Mr. President.
A few months after the 2019 accord, Masari told the world that the bandits had reneged on the peace pact. According to him, they were not people to be trusted.
A point of note in the peace accords of 2016 and 2019 was that none of the bandit leaders were citizens of any foreign country. They were all Nigerians, and all of them were Fulani. This invalidates the false belief that the bandits are foreigners or were from another tribe in the south. Most of those hardened criminal lords are still moving about unscathed in villages and forests of Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, Sokoto and Niger states. They have been granting press interviews and meeting people like Sheikh Ahmad Gummi, which proves that the government is very aware of their locations and identities.
I cannot speak for other Nigerians. But for me as a person, I voted for you in the 2023 elections for two reasons. One. You are a Muslim. A Muslim is just as a leader and nice as a companion. If all Muslim leaders were to rule according to the teachings of Islam, even their enemies would beg Muslims to stand for elections, so they vote them to power. Two. Neither you nor your running mate are Fulani. With this, some of us believe Buhari’s sympathy for his kinsmen would not be there.
You are entering your second year, and banditry is only worsening. What struck me most about your approach to banditry are the latest revelations by a young Islamic scholar, Sheikh Munir Adam Koza. According to Sheikh Koza, he was among the many young influential Islamic scholars invited for a meeting by some defence officials of your government. With financial reward, they were requested to propagate the following in their preachings.
1. That banditry by Fulani groups is justified because Fulani people have been subjected to neglect and injustice over a long period.
2. Call on the government to dialogue with bandits and give them political appointments.
3. That the current Governors of Zamfara and Katsina are wrong to have set up security outfits to confront bandits.
Sheikh Koza, who expressed his disagreement at the first meeting, was not invited to subsequent meetings.
The fact that Islamic scholars are actively preaching the above items testifies to the veracity of Sheikh Koza’s statements.
The first question I raised when I saw the video clip was whether you are aware of this action taken by your appointees. It would be a monumental mistake to say since the insecurity is taking place in the North, you have now appointed Northerners to solve “their” own problem. Nigerians voted for you, not Ribadu, Badaru, Matawalle or any of those. You are thus accountable to Nigerians, and before God for any action your government takes.
With all the due respect of a loyal citizen, I would like to call on your Excellency to come clean about this action allegedly taken by officials of your government. Taking appropriate action against the said Government officials would go a long way toward consolidating the confidence ordinary citizens like me have in your government.
Most importantly, we want an end to banditry. It can be ended, Mr. President.
Prof. Abdussamad Umar Jibia wrote via aujibia@gmail.com.
