{"id":1988,"date":"2021-12-26T12:31:43","date_gmt":"2021-12-26T12:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vor.org.ng\/?p=1988"},"modified":"2022-08-11T20:01:33","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T20:01:33","slug":"maybe-the-north-has-woken-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ictnetworldltd.com\/newvor\/2021\/12\/26\/maybe-the-north-has-woken-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe the North has woken up"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Lekan Sote
\nThere are conflicting reports of an escape by Sultan Sa\u2019ad Abubakar III of Sokoto, who left the Nigeria Army (to ascend the throne of Shehu Uthman dan Fodio), as a Brigadier-General, through a window to avoid a horde of bandits who invaded a mosque.
\nAmerica\u2019s General Douglas MacArthur once suggested that old soldiers never die, a testimony to the lasting agility of military types. So if anyone saw the agile moves of the Sultan in the face of danger it should not be surprising.
\nEven if this report is fake, as one would hope, it shows the level to which security in Nigeria has deteriorated, signifying that the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has failed to discharge its primary assignment.
\nA sultan, gathering his turban, djellaba, cape, slippers and worry beads in his hands as he jumps out through the window to avoid kidnapping or harm is not only undignifying, it is sacrilege.
\nOba Israel Adewusi, Olufon of Ifon in Ose Local Government Area of Ondo State, was killed by armed assailants. And others, including Funke Olakunrin, daughter of Yoruba Afenifere leader, Reuben Fasoranti, have been killed in these perilous times.
\nSBM, a research firm, recently reported that the 3,686 non-state actors killed between October 2020 and September 2021 included Boko Haram insurgents, bandits, Indigenous People of Biafra separatists, militants, vigilance groups\u2019 members, cultists and smugglers.
\nAlso, 985 security agents, from the military, police and customs were killed within the same period. It is, however, evident that Nigeria has gone beyond insurgency, separatists and bandits to a nearly full-blown war though the government is fighting shy of admitting it.
\nInitially, it was only Boko Haram, with lifestyle and religious grouses (which Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, thinks is ideological), against the Nigerian state and society.
\nIt snowballed into herders attacking farmers and their cattle destroying farm crops, and banditry (euphemism for kidnapping, which should attract sanctions). Bandits, that the President now admits are terrorists, exact levies and taxes from farmers and install district heads and satraps\u2013 even in Niger State, near the Federal Capital Territory.
\nAlso, loose collectives of bandits and Boko Haram splinter groups, like the Islamic State of West Africa Province that is bankrolled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, spread across vast ungoverned spaces of Northern Nigeria.
\nMusician, Dan Shanawa, praised bandit Bello Turji as \u201ca lion, untouchable and great leader.\u201d Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal was understandably alarmed. But he ordered the arrest of the musician, instead of the criminal, who had the temerity to write a truce letter to Zamfara State Governor. Though Nigeria Airforce fighter jets later sacked his camp.
\nFounder of Choice of Peace, Gender and Development Non-Governmental Organisation, Hafsat Maina Mohammed, who sought asylum in America after being raped, was on TV, to tell Nigerians about her traumatic experience at the hands of men believed to be Boko Haram insurgents.
\nSometimes, amidst sobs and agony, she narrated the story of her abduction and rape, when she tried to shoo the men away from raping a nine-year-old girl. She described the trauma and stigmatisation of rape victims as well as general insecurity in Northern Nigeria.
\nShe and her collaborators are looking for ways to make Northern Nigeria a more secure and safe place for everyone, especially the female child. She hinted that Southern Nigerians cannot afford to act as if the insecurity in the North does not concern them, though Northern leaders kept mum when herders went on a rampage in the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria.
\nTo date, nearly all the Chibok Girls, some of the Dapchi Girls, and many abducted students in Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Niger and other Northern Nigerian states are either dead or presumed missing because no one can account for them.
\nAs predicted by Obafemi Awolowo, first Premier of Western Nigeria, and Aisha Yesufu, activist and co-convener of #BringBackOurGirls pressure group, uneducated (Northern) Nigerian youths will one day rise as a menace to society.
\nAwolowo puts it this way: \u201cThe children of the poor (that) you refuse to train will never let your (educated) children have peace.\u201d This reminds one of the 13.5 million out-of-school children roaming the streets, mainly in Northern Nigeria.
\nAisha puts it more graphically: \u201cThe day the abandoned (Northern Nigerian youths) decide to hit the streets (in protest or rampage?), the North (and Nigeria too) will burn. These ones will not spare anyone.\u201d
\nBy demanding that the Buhari regime should, at least, secure the lives and properties of Northern citizens, (and by extension, other Nigerians), the demonstrating youths displayed nearly the same savvy as their (mostly) Southern Nigerian #EndSARS counterparts who took Nigeria by storm in October 2020.
\nThe caption on the banner of the demonstrating Northern youths screamed, \u201c#NorthernNigeriaIsBleeding.\u201d They added the kicker, \u201cBuhari Is Sleeping,\u201d so that none, especially residents of Aso Rock Villa, will be in doubt as to who should wear the cap of the restorer of peace to Nigeria.
\nSokoto State chapter of Coalition of Northern Groups declared in unequivocal terms, \u2018\u2019We hereby place the authorities on notice that if the killings and abductions are not significantly or totally controlled within the next three months, mass action would be called that will not prelude occupying all towns in all the frontline states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.\u201d Remember #OccupyLagos during the Goodluck Jonathan presidency?
\nNote that former President Olusegun Obasanjo thinks Buhari has gone past his sell-by date; that he has done his best for the security and welfare of Nigerians who should now be thinking of the post-Buhari era.
\nObasanjo recounted that Sheikh Ahmed Gumi, who visits bandits in the thickest boondocks of Northern Nigeria, told him of boy-soldiers in the order of kids who fought the Liberia and Sierra Leone wars of the 1980s and 1990s.
\nIn the early part of the Boko Haram insurgency, young girls with bombs strapped to their bodies went out to kill victims in mosques or markets. Some of them, caught before they could detonate the bombs, were found to be high on drugs.
\nGovernor Bello Masari of Katsina State, President Buhari\u2019s home state, appears to agree with Minister of Defence, retired Major General Bashir Magashi, who suggested that Nigerians should stand up to bandits man-to-man.
\nMasari wants the government to allow Nigerians to bear arms in self-defence one presumes.
\nThis may lead to the idea of state police, whose precursors are Amotekun or Western Nigeria Security Network, Northern Nigeria\u2019s several Joint Task Forces (euphemism for government-approved vigilance forces), and emerging Ebubeagu in South-East Nigeria.
\nAs some pressure groups, like Yoruba Afenifere, insist that the Nigerian polity must be restructured before the 2023 general elections, Prof Attahiru Jega, former Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, thinks insecurity may jeopardise the 2023 elections.
\nHe warns: \u201cAs we look forward to the 2023 General Elections there is increasing apprehension that the pervasive insecurity in the country may present a formidable obstacle, if not an obstruction, to that election.\u201d
\nMaybe now that significant voices in Northern Nigeria, including that of Sultan Abubakar, have been added to those from Southern Nigeria, President Buhari will lead the fight against terror from the front, and allow state police.
\nThose Northern Nigerian supporters of the President, who finally found their voice of dissent, must not be shot at like #EndSARS protesters.
\nSource: PunchNG<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lekan Sote There are conflicting reports of an escape by Sultan Sa\u2019ad Abubakar III of Sokoto, who left the Nigeria Army…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[737],"tags":[67,126],"class_list":["post-1988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-nigeria","tag-north"],"yoast_head":"\nMaybe the North has woken up - Voice of Reason<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/ictnetworldltd.com\/newvor\/2021\/12\/26\/maybe-the-north-has-woken-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Maybe the North has woken up - Voice of Reason\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Lekan Sote There are conflicting reports of an escape by Sultan Sa\u2019ad Abubakar III of Sokoto, who left the Nigeria Army…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/ictnetworldltd.com\/newvor\/2021\/12\/26\/maybe-the-north-has-woken-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Voice of Reason\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-12-26T12:31:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-11T20:01:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/ictnetworldltd.com\/newvor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/37CA7CCE-883C-4FCC-8251-F461B6141401.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"350\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/ictnetworldltd.com\/newvor\/2021\/12\/26\/maybe-the-north-has-woken-up\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/ictnetworldltd.com\/newvor\/2021\/12\/26\/maybe-the-north-has-woken-up\/\",\"name\":\"Maybe the North has woken up - 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