The recent attack on Jos North where innocent people, children and women, including men in the community were murdered in cold blood while they were asleep, again raises serious question about what all these talks about providing security for the people by the government is all about, going by the quick successions people are hacked to death, almost everywhere in the country. What is surprising is that, the attack took place at the time the state government imposed a dusk to dawn curfew to forestall reprisal attack after the death of some people, who were allegedly killed before the latest one took place. For the Plateau and Benue people, in fact all over the country, the orgy of killings so far recorded may be nearing the numbers of those lost during the Nigeria – Biafra Civil War of the late 60’s and early 70’s. President Muhammadu Buhari in his usual manner has vowed to hunt down those that perpetrated the heinous attack on Jos people.
The Governor himself, Simon Lalong has appealed for calm saying that, the state government is doing its utmost best to seeing that peace returns to the Plateau, even as he warned trouble makers in the state to be ready to contend with the law enforcement agents in the state he said had enjoyed relative peace in the past six years. While the Plateau massacre was raging, the so called bandits, the new name of terrorists in our clime, unfortunately too, attacked the brain box of the nation’s security architecture, the Nigeria Defense Academy (NDA), abducted, wounded and killed officers during their inglorious outing against the state. The attack on the NDA unfortunately confirms that nowhere is safe, especially when those behind the attack are yet to be apprehended by the authority, almost two weeks the assault on the soul of the nation’s security institution was carried out by suspected bandits.
Today, Governors of the States, and the various socio political groups, including religious institutions are now calling on the citizens to defend themselves. Government cannot claim ignorant of this deafening calls because, it has done close to nothing to solving the security challenge the country has been facing in the last six years, but instead tries to pamper those who perpetrate evil upon the country against the will of the people. The planned reintegration of the so called repentant Boko Haram members into the Nigerian society and their purported recruitment into the Nigerian Army currently being canvassed, especially when those they maimed, killed and chased away from their ancestral homes have not gotten justice but instead are still languishing in the Internally Displaced People’s Camps (IDP), many say is a time bomb, waiting to explode.
The argument is that, those who fought against the state should be properly profiled, screened, and individual culpability ascertained and those found guilty punished, according to the laws of the land. The law and its application has nothing to do with repentance to avoid emboldening others who may be waiting or nursing such a nonsensical ideology like Boko Haram that has brought misery, sorrows that shook the fabrics of the society, and still threatening Nigeria’s corporate existence. The idea of playing politics with the lives of the people to say the least, is no more profitable and will never be for political merchants and non-state actors masquerading everywhere as peace makers. The incessant attacks and kidnappings, especially in kaduna where several school children and students were abducted, released and many still held in captive, a state that houses the arsenal of the nation, the NDA, latest attack, more than anything else calls for soul searching by those minding our affairs as a country.
The call for self-defense now on the lips of everyone can only be avoided only if the government makes good its threat to bring to justice those who carried out the dastardly attacks on Jos North people and all other unwarranted attacks perpetrated by the enemies of the state. While we commiserate with the victims of both Jos North attacks and the Nigerian Defense Academy (NDA), we urge the Federal government to know that blood is flowing like rivers on the land which can only be forestalled if government shows that it is capable and become more circumspect on matters affecting security of lives and properties to avoid citizens taking laws into their hands. The authorities must sit up before it’s too late for all of us.
