The rangy youth with vacant eyes starred into space as the car approached. His ill-fitting, rag-like clothes hung over his bent, bony frame. Flies danced giddily around a festering sore on his ankle. He paid no heed to them as he continued to commune with invisible demons that stretched his imagination. Usman Farouk, 15, has been living with his uncle Halliru Matazu in Azare, Bauchi State for three months now. Matazu is found of his nephew but in spite of his best effort at providing parental care, he is convinced that it is only a matter of time before his nephew joins one of the armed groups terrorizing the north.
Farouk, like most of his peers was a farm hand when he was eight-year-old, a couple of years later he became a herds-boy, living in the wild and in the womb of nature with herdsmen. Life was hard but it was fun.
For many years he returned home in Dikwa, Bornu State once a year during the big Hajj to see his parents, two elder sisters and two younger brothers. Then this year he came home to find the village of about 2000 people razed.
Fortunately, his elder sisters had been married off to neighboring villages before the attack, but his father was one of many men felled by terrorists who accused the villagers of siding with government security agents.
No one knew what happened to his mother or younger brothers, but Farouk hoped they were among those that slipped out of the village under the cover of darkness.
Farouk knew members of different armed groups operating in the plains. His malam, Danlandi Danbazzu told him many times that he had nothing to fear if he kept his nose out of their business. He obeyed the older man’s advice, but last year there was massive recruitment exercise and they approached him.
Soon there will be no middle ground they told him, anyone who is not with the armed groups will be regarded as an enemy. Farouk had sought advice from his malam and his father and they cautioned him against joining them.
Now the armed groups appear to be winning. The sore around his ankle was his badge for organizing a search party for his mother and brothers.
There are millions of youths like Farouk in the north with no education and a hazy future. The pure, prevalent, pastoral life that nurtured many of them have been polluted by a hail of dust produced by hoofs and wheels bearing arms that ruptured lives and fed the parched brown earth with gallons of crimson fluid and putrefying flesh. But can the Federal Government of Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari stem the tide?
Buhari was popularly elected in 2015 on his promises of “killing” corruption and insurgency in the north. In those heady days of “Sai Baba”, one of the anticorruption quotes of Buhari was:” We must kill corruption before corruption will kill us.”
Also Buhari promised that: “ With me as President, the world would have nothing to worry about insecurity in Nigeria.”
Five years after those promises that birthed hope, corruption and insecurity are threatening to end Nigeria. To make matters worse, the response from Aso Rock is the feeble kicks of a dying horse.
Indeed, every well-meaning Nigerian is worried about the situation in the country. Armed groups roam free, daily harvesting huge ransom and blood. But how did we arrive at this sorry state?
In the twilight of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, at the time when #FeBuhari was trending on Twitter, there was a request to postpone the election slated for February, 2015 to March.
The reason offered by the then government was to enable them clear the north-east of terrorists to allow citizens in the affected places to vote.
Most Nigerians derided the government, saying if they could not clear the terrorists in over five years, what would they achieve in four weeks?
It was only a ploy to postpone the doom day at the pools many concluded. So the Twitter trend quickly changed to #March4Buhari.
But Jonathan delivered on his promise. The general elections which was adjudged to be peaceful, free and fair, held in all the territories formerly under the control of Boko Haram terrorists.
Today, it has been revealed that:” Nigeria covertly brought in military-technical advisers regarded as mercenaries from South Africa and the Soviet Union”.
Buhari’s administration built on the gains of the mercenaries and there was relative peace in many parts of the north between 2015-2019.
This writer travelled extensively in the north within the period and the feedback from the locals was largely positive.
The situation increasingly deteriorated after the 2019 general elections. Buhari it appears, became spent and satiated after his ultimate political conquest and happily went into coma while on the driver’s seat.
One year and six months into his second term, Nigerians are calling for Buhari’s resignation. In November, 2020 alone, 216 Nigerians were killed and 144 others kidnapped (www.civicmedialab.ng).
The Northern Elders Forum (NEF), a socio-political group of leaders from the north, led by the Sultan of Sokoto, lamented the worsening security situation.
“We have not run out of patriotic, distinguished Nigerians who can proffer solutions to the problem.” The traditional ruler concluded that: “What we lack is implementation. We do not like doing the right thing, we always cut corners.”
Similarly, Professor Usman Yusuf published a widely circulated letter with gory details of daily experiences of citizen in the north in recent months.
The response from government has been lame and ineffectual. Information and Culture Minister, Lai Muhammed said “global powers” have frustrated and blocked Nigeria’s effort to acquire weapons to end terrorism.
Army’s spokesperson Sagir Musa blamed members of the international community for sponsoring Boko Haram’s attack to “cut Nigeria to size”.
Former Army chief, Tukur Buratai said in a Facebook post that terrorism may continue in Nigeria till 2040.
Do we fold our hands and pray as Nigerians usually do rather than work? Or do we continue to encourage the northern elders to compel Buhari to resign? Whatever works must be engaged now to stop youths like Farouk from joining armed groups to overrun the government.
This article was written by Soni Gold in December 2020
