Clouds of fear as Nigeria turns 53

Increasing wave of violence and insecurity casts a shadow on the Independence Day celebrations, writes CHUX OHAI

As Nigeria marks its 53rd anniversary today, the fear of possible attacks by Boko Haram and other insurgents appears to becloud the celebrations.

Scared by the violent events of the last few days, it is easy to imagine how most Nigerians might spend Independence Day. The majority, no doubt, may consider staying away from crowded spots to avoid falling victim to terrorist attacks.

Hardly any day passes without newspapers announcing yet another deadly attack by unidentified gunmen in screaming headlines. Only two days ago, about 50 students of a College of Agriculture in Yobe State were reportedly murdered in cold blood by gunmen believed to be members of the violent Islamic group known as the Boko Haram.

 Most of the victims of the attack were said to have been killed while they slept. The rest were taken outside and simply cut down in a hail of bullets by the attackers.

A day before the incident, the residents of Zangang in the Kaura Local Government Area in Kaduna State were thrown into mourning as rampaging gunmen stormed the community, mowing down about 15 people and burning several houses. An estimated 1,000 victims of the attack were forced to flee their homes.

Also, between September 17 and 19, 2013, gunmen dressed in Army fatigues and suspected to be members of Boko Haram attacked motorists on the road linking Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, and Damaturu in neighbouring Yobe, killing a total of 159 people and further heightening the tension in the north-east.

The Yobe massacre is the latest in a series of unprovoked attacks by the Jihadist terror group. Collectively, the sect and other militant groups, such as MEND, Ansaru and Ombatse,  have become a thorn in the flesh of the Nigerian state and biggest threat to the survival of the country as a single corporate entity.

Nigeria has never had it so bad in the past. Fifty-three years ago, the scenario was quite different. There was relative security in every part of the country. Most Nigerians, irrespective of ethnic or religious background, lived in harmony. The crime rate was generally low as most people were contented with what they had. Security personnel were disciplined and committed to the task of maintaining law and order anywhere in the country.

In those days, armed robbery was very rare and most people went about their normal without any fear of attacks or intimidation from any group or individuals. But all that changed with time, especially after the Nigeria Civil War.

Investigation shows that the war, which lasted three years and resulted in the death of about 1 million people, ushered in a frightening dimension in crime. The period witnessed, for the first time, armed robbery attacks on a scale previously thought to be impossible in different parts of the country.

Nowadays, a combination of robbery attacks, kidnapping, ritual murders, rising urban brigandage (especially in cities like Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano) and insurgency has foisted an atmosphere of fear  and insecurity in the country, so deep that Nigerians have begun to be frightened by even their own shadows.

Perhaps the worst threat to security lies in the activities of the Boko Haram and other violent Islamist groups. Often described as faceless and lacking a real purpose, the Islamic sect has claimed responsibility for thousands of deaths through suicide bombings and armed attacks across Northern Nigeria within the last four years.

Although the sect can be held directly responsible for the cloud of fear that pervades the entire country at present, violence has been endemic in the polity since independence. Nigeria’s diversity has always been exploited in the past by greedy and selfish politicians to fuel tensions, which often resulted in violence.

Since 1960, politics in Nigeria have been characterized by electoral violence among rival political parties and military coup d’etats. Successive military and democratically elected governments have been accused of ‘terrorising’ the opposition or individuals that did not approve of their existence.

The military era in governance, for instance, introduced and somewhat encouraged a culture of impunity and state terror in the society. Protests against the environmental degradation in some communities, particularly in the Niger Delta, have been put down by successive regimes with excessive violence. A good example is the invasion of Odi in Bayelsa State and the massacre of its inhabitants by the military in November 1999.

The rise of ethnic militias between the 1980s and early 1990s did not help matters. Eager to grab their shares of the resources from the oil sector, self-determination groups in the Niger Delta turned increasingly violent. Failing to gain the attention of the government, they took to kidnapping, illegal bunkering and in some cases, sabotage as a means of registering their grievances.

Also, the activities of vigilante groups set up by some state governments to curb the activities of criminals contributed to the growth of violence and insecurity in parts of the country.  Some of these groups, such as the Bakassi Boys in the Eastern states, the Oodua Peoples Congress, the Egbesu of the Niger Delta and the Hisbah in the North were often accused of resorting to extra-judicial means of fighting crime and enforcing order.

Over the last 20 years, an estimated 15,000 people have died as a result of ethnic and sectarian violence in Nigeria. More than 4,000 died in bombings and assaults carried out by Boko Haram since 2009, while 800 people were killed during the post-election violence that swept most of the northern states in 2011.

But before then, about 5,000 people lost their lives during armed clashes between the Army and followers of Islamic preacher, Mohammed Marwa, aka Maitatsine, in Kano in 1980.

Although Maitatsine himself was killed in the conflict, the Yan Tatsine riots continued into the early 1980s. In October 1982, riots erupted in Bulumkuttu, near Maiduguri, and in Kaduna, claiming over 3,000 lives.

Some survivors of these conflicts were said to have moved to Yola, capital of Adamawa. But their presence in the city was instrumental to additional violent uprisings in 1984, which led to the death of about 1,000 people. During the riots, about half of the residents of Yola were rendered homeless.

The orgy of violence initiated by the Boko Haram in the last few days, in which hundreds of people have lost their lives, indicates that the military offensive against the sect has not been successful.

As a measure to check further destruction of human lives and property the sect in the north-east, President Goodluck Jonathan had declared a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa States on May 14, 2013.

He ordered the armed forces to carry out a joint operation aimed at routing the terrorists and their allies operating in the three states and around Lake Chad

Initially the military operation had brought a lull to the violence, forcing the Islamists to flee their bases and hide in the forests and mountains across the northeast.

But it seems that the lull has given way to a maddening desire for revenge and the Boko Haram proves to be unrelenting in its determination to inflict terror on the society. At first, the sect attacked schools on the pretext that they were hiding government-sponsored vigilantes opposed to its activities, killing innocent school children in the process. Then it resumed attacks on security forces.

As pointed out by some observers lately, the Islamist group appears to have taken to guerrilla tactics in rural areas where the population are vulnerable.

The sect is believed to be working in tandem with other groups affiliated to Al Qaeda in Africa. Lately the international community expressed deeper concern for security in Nigeria as it was speculated that the group might have acquired dangerous and sophisticated weapons, especially surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles.

Also, on Saturday, Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, lent his voice to the growing outcry against insurgency in Nigeria by calling on the United Nations Organisation to compel its member countries to act against those whose actions in support of terrorism have negated its founding principles.

Lamenting the activities of Bokon Haram and its allied Islamist groups in the country, Soyinka said, “A murdering minority pronounce themselves a superior class of beings to others, assume powers to decide the mode of existence of others, to decide who shall live and who shall die, who shall shake hands with whom, even as daily colleagues, who shall dictate and who shall submit.”

He added that the true divide was not between believers and unbelievers, but between those who violated to believe or not to believe.