By: John Awe
WITHOUT any scintilla of doubt, there are now two governments effectively in place in Nigeria. One governs the cities and towns. The other rules the vast forests. By the way, that is roughly 25 percent of the total landmass of Nigeria, according to the World Bank. One government rules by day while the other rules by night, with occasional overlaps, of course. One is led by President Bola Tinubu. The other is led by a fast-swelling column of anonymous armed demons. The sad part of the situation is that the subjects of the two governments remain the hapless masses of Nigeria. These battle-weary citizens pay their taxes and duties to the official government and pay their ransoms to the government of the forests. The Holy Book says you cannot serve two masters equally, but as is the case with other axioms, Nigeria is an exception. Nigerians are currently serving two heavy-handed masters. While failure to pay your taxes can land you in jail, failure to pay your ransoms can land you on a cold slab in the mortuary or a shallow grave in the forest. When the folktale legend Daniel Fagunwa, wrote Yoruba’s first full-length novel ‘Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole’, translated into English as “Forest of a Thousand Daemons”, in 1938, the demons ruling our forests now had not been born. Unlike the mind-boggling forest-dwelling goblins that Fagunwa described in his famous book, the present demons colonizing the forests are not supernatural beings. On the other hand, they are mortals like everyone else but only happen to own weapons of destruction, by virtue of which they have assumed the role of God in the lives of the helpless masses.
These modern-day goblins are products of a string of visionless and lethargic national leaders in the past years. They have been replicating quietly like a virulent virus in the last few years with very feeble resistance from the government of the day. If there is any evil the mind can conceive, these demons have perpetrated it repeatedly with no pang of conscience and no retribution from the state. They have killed, maimed, raped and tortured fellow humans to their hearts’ content with no restraint. They collect eye-popping ransoms and still kill the captives if they want. There is no one to question them. They captured an entire school of female children in Chibok and kept them in the bush for as long as they wanted. As if that was not evil enough, they went ahead to put multiple children in the little bellies of the children, having passed them around as s3x slaves, altering their destinies for life. Such a horrendous atrocity did not bring down the heavens. They waylaid an entire train service, killed as many as they wanted and herded the rest of the passengers into the forest where they kept them for as long as they wanted and released only those whose families paid hefty ransoms. The evil men demystified the so-called seat of government when they extended their activities to Abuja. They have since been routinely raiding residential estates and abducting as many people as they want. There is no one to ask them any questions. In January of this year, they invaded an estate and abducted two families asking for N60 million and N50 million respectively. To stampede the families into mobilising the ransoms quickly, they executed a 13-year-old girl, Michelle Ariyo, from the Ariyo family and Talatu Salihu, a 500-level student of Bayero University Kano (BUK) from the other family. A third hostage, a hotel staff, identified as Akpagher Joseph Terzungwe, was also killed. The families still paid the ransoms to retrieve their remaining members. Can any demon in Daniel Fagunwa’s book be more evil than these ones?
Recently, they abducted the Emir of Gobir, Alhaji Isa Muhammad Bawa and slammed a ransom of N1 billion on him! How do you negotiate a ransom of N1 billion? The family did their best to get the bandits to be reasonable but the blood-sucking demons would not back down beyond half a billion naira. They put the old man through the indignity of begging for his own life on camera. His cheek was swollen and his top was blood-stained, suggesting that he must have been physically beaten and tortured shortly before the camera started rolling. They had no regard for his age or office. At the end of it all, they still killed the old man. You would think they had done their worst. Not quite. They refused to release the dead body of the slain monarch for proper burial. The prayer for his soul’s repose was held in the absence of his body. Not done, the bandits insisted and got N60 million ransom for the Emir’s son in their custody, in addition to other valuables such as five brand new motorcycles. All these happened in a country purportedly with an official government. The youths of the late Emir’s kingdom stormed the streets to protest the treatment meted out to their revered monarch. The bandits, apparently, took offence at such an affront and acted decisively. They raided the communities from house to house and abducted over 150 people, according to Daily Trust. They also rustled over 1000 cows. If the people of Gobir were confused before, now they know who their real boss is.
These outlaws are becoming bolder, more brazen and more daring. Long gone are the days they used to cover their faces when on operations. Now, bandits pose with stacks of naira collected as ransoms and post the pictures on TikTok! A recent viral video even shows a group of bandits in the forest insulting the parents of our de facto president, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
The nation faces a serious food crisis now, principally, because this menace is increasingly denying Nigeria the adequate use of its fertile land. Many farmers have run out of the bushes because of the activities of hostage-takers and recalcitrant nomadic herders. Professor Bello Bada of the Department of English, UsmanuDanfodio University, Sokoto, told newsmen that communities around Gobir had lost over 20,000 hectares of farmland to bandits. It is the same in other places across the country. Is it any surprise that foodstuff prices are hugging the roof? It is still a wonder why those in government are not sufficiently alarmed at this menace. Why is President Tinubu not treating this like an emergency that it is? Why are the political leaders still conducting themselves as if all is well? Granted that it is a multifaceted challenge for which a solution is not expected overnight, the major bother is that the official government of the country is not sufficiently alarmed at the situation. If they were, it would be obvious in their priorities. But clearly, it is not, despite their profession. The nation is being gradually brought to its knees by the dark forces wrestling for its soul. The situation demands a concerted and strategic response. There are technology solutions that can help the country.
It took only seven brave hunters to subdue a thousand demons in Daniel Fagunwa’s imaginary forest. Certainly, Nigeria can muster far more brave men to rid our forests of these new demons. The time is now for the Federal Government to assert its authority over the entire territory of the country. Enough of sharing rulership privileges with non-state actors. At this stage, it is all right to seek help if the challenge is too enormous. This evil has persisted for far too long and should be stamped out now.
- Awe, a journalist and PR practitioner, writes in from Lagos.
Read Also: Why we can’t determine, influence fuel price — Dangote
