That terrorists last week ambushed the convoy of an advance party of President Muhammadu Buhari en route his way to his hometown, Daura, in Katsina State is no longer news.
A few people were reportedly killed in the attack, while two others sustained minor injuries when the bandits hit the President’s advance team, comprising security guards, protocol and media officers.
The Presidency, as usual, was prompt to condemn the dastardly act, describing it as a sad and unwelcome development.
What is worrisome about this latest affront among many past attacks is the increasing bald-faced impudence of the terrorists.
There is no doubt that government failure or reluctance to deal decisively with the marauding terrorists is responsible for their increasing boldness and effrontery to attack the president’s convoy. It could have been the president himself and not his advance party but providence averted that.
It is embarrassing that the president cannot safely travel to his home state, which has become a bastion of bandits. If the hoodlums could attack the president regardless of the kind of security around him, one could imagine the fate of ordinary Nigerians. The deduction from this is that time is running out on Nigeria unless some drastic measures are taken.
In the near-daily attacks, one other police officer was killed and an expatriate was kidnapped in Kwara during the same period.
On the same day the president’s convoy was attacked, an Area Commander of Police in Dutsinma, ACP Aminu Umar, was also killed during a fierce gun duel while the police team he led on a clearance mission in Zakka forest of Safana Local Government Area of the state was ambushed. The team also lost one other officer but succeeded in killing one of the bandits’ commanders.
A 33-year-old operative of the Department of State Services, DSS, Sadiq Abdullahi Bindawa, was kidnapped and killed by gunmen when he went on a weekend visit to the state in September 2020.
Even the District Head of the president’s hometown, Daura, Mallam Musa Umar, was also kidnapped in 2019. All these incidents typify the deplorable security situation in the country.
Following the latest attack, jets of the Nigeria Air Force, NAF, raided Katsina villages, killing several terrorists. The NAF had also eliminated 18 terrorists that were amassed in Safana council area.
However, this usual chakachaka approach to the war against the terrorists actually contributes to their cheekiness because they see the security personnel as unserious.
It has always been the pattern of the military to wait for the terrorists to strike first before responding with a few ratatata gunfires and then retreat while the authorities engage in rhetoric, as in the present instance, only to wait for the attack next time.
However, Nigerians were shocked when the president ignored the attack on his convoy and prison and the worsening insecurity in the land, to jet out of the country on Wednesday, July 6, this time to Dakar, Senegal, to participate in the International Development Association, IDA, for Africa Summit. Having embarked on at least 10 foreign trips so far in this year alone and still counting, Nigerians considered this latest trip one too many, considering the deplorable economic situation in the land regardless of the justification by his aides, as not much benefits have accrued to the country by these too frequent foreign trips.
He also received Senegal’s highest honour during this latest trip in a case that could best be likened to one chasing a rat while his house is on fire.
It seems that the president does not realise that he has but a few months to write his name in gold by dealing a decisive blow to the insurgents. He rode to power on the back of his promise to solve the security challenges but, sadly, more than seven years down the line, it is still mere promises or a blame game against the government he succeeded.
The suspicion is rife that the government is pursuing a Fulani and Islamic agenda. This may be difficult to believe but for the indeterminate posture of the government that seems to lend credence to that suspicion in some quarters.
A situation where only Fulani kinsmen dictate the security architecture of this country and sit atop the most relevant organs of state to the exclusion of others casts the president in the mould of a tribal lord. The matter is made worse by the kid-glove treatment of those that are troubling this country.
Therefore, Mr President, who has been twice lucky to occupy the number one seat in this country must exonerate himself from such perceived or real fears through proactive, aggressive measures, beginning with releasing the names of those sponsoring terrorism in the country in a list the government has also admitted is in its possession.
A major issue of concern is the seeming target of Christians and churches for attack by Fulani Islamists and the seeming indifference of the authorities to do anything about it.
On June 5, 2022, Nigerians received with great shock the killing of over 40 worshippers and injuring many others in a Catholic church in Owo, Ondo State.
Indeed, attacks on churches have become too frequent of late even though Christians have recurrently come under attack in Nigeria in the past years.
So far, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, ACLED, there had been 23 attacks on church premises and Christians so far this year while there were 31 such attacks in 2021; and 18 in 2020.
Also, the Primate of the Methodist Church, Samuel Kanu Uche, was kidnapped in the South-east on May 29, 2022, and only regained his freedom after a whopping N100 million ransom was paid.
Southern Kaduna, a predominantly Christian-dominated area and parts of Plateau and Benue states have virtually been marked for extermination.
Many Catholic priests had also been kidnapped or killed. There have been several such cases and in most cases, there are no recorded reports that the culprits had been caught or brought to book.
The attack on the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja has struck fear in the heart of most Nigerians. To them, nowhere and no one is safe or beyond the reach of the terrorists anymore if it had got to the point of attacking the president, his hometown and a correctional centre in the heart of the capital city without detection by the intelligence unit of the security outfits.
This lends credence to the fear that the fight against terrorism has been compromised in high places. Only recently, a former Boko Haram member was discovered to have successfully enlisted into the Nigerian Correctional Service in Adamawa State. How could that be?
There are likely others like him in some other important security outfit and they would have nothing more than sabotage efforts to tame the madness out there. Some people also that the attack on Kuje Prison could be a way to placate the terrorists and release detained hardened Boko Haram suspects, which is their condition for releasing tens of victims of the Abuja-Kaduna abduction saga still held hostage.