Nigeria at 61: What is our government doing about banditry?
Sixty-one years ago, Nigeria gained freedom from the iron claws of British colonialism. Indeed, Nigeria has never been a stable entity since independence, owing largely to the history of its artificial constitution by colonial masters. The state’s nature, functions, and membership have remained largely contested, culminating in various political upheavals and security challenges. However, banditry has proven to be the gravest security challenge confounding Nigeria in recent times. Bandits, mostly nomadic Fulani, have reigned terror in Northwestern and Central Nigeria, killing approximately 300 civilians in June of this year alone.
Many political analysts have traced the root of this security challenge to the Nigerian state’s inability to fulfil its part of the social contract in terms of the provision of public goods. An analysis that, albeit not wrong in its entirety, is somewhat problematic. Elsewhere, drawing upon Nigerian history, I have explained that this security challenge is structural as it is a product of the contradictions between the modern Nigerian state, which is an arbitrary colonial creation, and nomadic livelihood. Nomadism, whose pastoral type involves the open grazing of herds from territory to territory, and state modernity, predicated on fixed territoriality, are mutually incompatible. In what may be called a post-nomadic world, some herders want a return to traditional nomadism, which they are still nostalgically attached to. Consequently, they engage in nefarious acts imbued with the misguided belief that violence can be utilised to negotiate spaces for open grazing.
On the other hand, the decline of the nomadic past, in which colonialism is implicated, has attracted Fulani youth to modern life. They see traditional nomadism as rather infeasible. Thus, they are no longer interested in herding cattle as a livelihood means and have explicitly stated a desire for urban employment. However, the modern labour market is unwilling to take in a mass of rural non-literate Fulani youth. Therefore, they are unable to meet the demands of modern life and thus engage in all forms of criminality, illicit accumulation and predatory behaviour. Sponsored by transnational firms and foreign nationals who engage in illegal mining, according to an ISS report, they have unleashed violence on rural people to create a conducive environment for illegal extraction. Without further ado on what has produced this recent spate of violence, one would be interested in knowing what government efforts are in quelling it.
So far, the federal government of Nigeria has shown no political will to combat bandit violence. For many, this apathy exemplifies the Buhari administration’s Fulani ethnic leaning, fueling allegations of ‘fulanisation’ agenda (i.e. a desire to reassert Fulani ethnic hegemony) and a new wave of ethnonationalism. With no clear strategy by the federal government, state governments have been left to deal with the security challenge by themselves in their ethnically defined territories. Based on the advice of a self-appointed ‘peace’ broker — Sheik Gumi, some state governments in the Northwest have entered pacts with bandits. Early this year, lawmakers in Zamfara state called for a ‘peace initiative’, maintaining that banditry could not be eradicated by military force but by granting amnesty to bandits. Since the government is notorious for imitating Western ideas and abstracting them from context, one is forced to think perhaps Zamafara lawmakers were trying to artificially create their own hybrid form of Hearts and Minds COIN strategy that will be specific for ending domestic terrorism.
However, the governor’s assertion after being frustrated by the bandits’ recalcitrance, where he claimed he will now ‘send them to God’, has proven this to be untrue. Regardless, the conciliatory gestures initially extended to them have contributed to the cycle of violence. Specifically, ransom payment for the release of kidnap victims across Nigeria has enabled bandits to make a political economy of kidnapping. Today, bandits continue to kill civilians with what seems like impunity. Highways are becoming deserted as fear grips every sector of society. School children and women have been particularly targeted, highlighting a gendered dimension to the problem. Even as this violence worsens every day, the federal government has taken no meaningful action to maximise Nigeria’s security, making the citizenry wonder what could possibly wake the Commander-in-chief from his stupor.
On this occasion of the 61st independence anniversary, the federal government needs to rethink its approach towards this group that has constituted an enormous threat to the so-called giant of Africa. The first step would be to call the perpetrators of this violence what they are — terrorists! This violence might have started as banditry, but it has metamorphosed into terrorism. The group has exhibited the key features of terrorism: the indiscriminate use of violence on civilians and the targeting of government buildings and personnel to make a symbolic statement arguably. The federal government was swift in proscribing the Biafran secessionist organisation, whose resurgence was born purely out of past and current injustices. Therefore, a group that has deemed killing civilians a more useful political tool than peaceful political negotiation does not deserve the protection the government has accorded it by not declaring it a terrorist group.
There is also a need for a coherent strategy. No security challenge has ever been eliminated without a coherent strategy. A good strategy would involve an explicit statement of Nigeria’s national interests. Is it in Nigeria’s national interest for bandits to continue kidnapping, killing and maiming civilians? Or is the security of Nigerian lives and properties the national interest? The answers to these questions will determine to what extent conciliatory measures or military force can be used. If civilian deaths and distress make up the national interest, then conciliatory measures, in the form of granting amnesty to bandits and rehabilitating them, are a sure-fire means of achieving these. However, if the objective of the national interest is to ensure the security of lives and guide against the complete disintegration of our society, then the federal government needs to crack down on bandits with heavy and brutal military force.
