_ By Ibraheem A. Waziri
Whatever is the source of the current insecurity is; it remains the responsibility of the government to be able to negotiate us through it with minimal casualties! We have submitted in the past, so many ideas that we feel the government could make good use of. Ranging from horizontal restructuring and reorganisation of power and command flow in the country; to massive reform in the security hierarchy and mode of operation. Abnormal situations often require extreme response to tackle and control. We changed the whole constitution in 1966-7 in order to save Nigeria from disintegrating!
However, over the years, academics in the ivory towers up North and clerics all seem to argue that the problem has always been part of a great scheme of the world powers, to control the vast resources hereunder the feet of the African Sahel. And it is why the problem refused to go! They often suggest that the government might not be entirely blamed, because the power behind the issues is beyond it. It is international! They emphatically used to submit.
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Look at the recent response the presidential assistant, Garba Shehu, gave to the Daily Trust’s newspaper editorial that took the government to the cleaners over the issues. In it he claimed that this wave of insecurity is not particular with Northern Nigeria alone but other neighbouring countries. This can be correctly thought to be a tacit endorsement of the international powers involvement theory.
Jamaatu Izalatil Bid’a’s(JIBWIS) called for series of prayers (Alqunut) over the issues, which should not be directed at the government or leadership but the problem itself. After all, Shaykh Kabiru Gombe is cited in a video clip saying the President constantly holds meeting with religious leaders for updates and obtaining inputs!
Then there is the short Facebook post by Prof. Abu Ali Liman of ABU Zaria that sought to elaborate that the African Sahel, is caught in the supreme battle over the control of its vast amount mineral resources, by the powers that be in international politics. This is reminiscent of what I too have been hearing for over six years now from colleagues-scholars of rural sociology in ABU Zaria. This regardless of their ethnic, regional or religious inclinations.
But in all this, what is absent is the identity or individual names of those superpowers and the name of their agent collaborators in the country. In this era of freedom of information, such data needs to be revealed if it is known. Also the government needs to unveil a step by step approach to deal with them. The superpowers can be negotiated with.
Let us know if they think we should cease to them the control of Zamfara State or part of Kaduna. Let us know what they exactly want! We can negotiate all the way, that we maybe left in peace. Our grandparents did the same thing at the beginning of the 20th century and Nigeria was born. We can do the same thing now to adjust our borders if it proves necessary. Enough of the killings. We don’t feel safe in this any longer!
