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Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari gave a speech on October 1st, attempting to rally people as terrorists are rampant in the country.
Nigeria calls them “bandits” to make the situation seem less dire.
“The past 18 months have been some of the most difficult periods in the history of Nigeria.”
Since the civil war of 1967-1970, “I doubt whether we have seen a period of more heightened challenges than what we have witnessed in this period,” the 78-year-old president said.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, additionally said:
“Today our path has been dogged by conflict; religious, ethnic and economic challenges; and insurgencies and banditry that have caused much darkness, many valleys, and many thorns.’’
In the last couple of months, kidnapping for ransom became increasingly uncontrollable that no day passed without reports of such emanating from any of the 19 states of North West, North Central and North East.
Terrorists kill farmers, destroy crops and farmland, as well as kill cattle. arms and schools have been turned to grave yards by bandits, causing food insufficiency, hunger and starvation
As an example, Nigeria’s North West Zamfara State is “home” to 10,000 terrorists, according to Governor Bello Matawalle.
He said the heinous activities of the “bandits” have led to the death of over 4,000 people, resulted in over 8,000 married women becoming widows, and over 16,000 children to become orphans.
“These bandits, investigations have shown, are hypnotised and so they are directionless; they don’t care about themselves that is why they are killing people recklessly,” he said.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) more than 600 schools have been closed this year; 10.5 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are out of school in Nigeria; and the number has increased by more than three million.
The United States Institute for Peace posted on its website that mass kidnapping of schoolchildren underscores the crumbling of human security in Africa’s most populous nation.
Additionally, it said the situation is “worsening a deeper impairment, hollowing out Nigeria’s education system to create a lost generation of youth across much of the country’’.
Still, Nigeria’s authorities attempt to present it as if they’re partially handling the situation.
Nigeria has succeeded in blocking terrorism financing, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami claimed.
Malami said the federal government had also succeeded in identifying and detaining “high profile individuals” responsible for funding banditry and terrorists’ activities.
“Bandits are being decimated to a larger degree. All these are indeed the effect of what we have done,” he said.
Reviewing the operation, governors from the 12 states in North Central and North West, report that the new measures are working and they are winning the war against banditry.
“Aside bombardment, hunger is making bandits move in drove towards communities around the forest area,’’ the governors alerted.
Fleeing bandits are setting up illegal checkpoints on highways, robbing haulage trucks of food and siphoning fuel from vehicles.
As a result, they are being pushed, but mostly to carry out even more attacks.
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Thank you southfront. That’s what really going on the Nigeria government is really hiding the true nature of the situation in the country
Putting aside what I assume is a lack of an effective strategy to combat the so called bandits, what is the Nigerian military doing wrong?
On paper, the Nigerian military seems like a credible force to reckon with.
Are you not the son of your father again?
The whole country needs to campaign at the local to national level to kill these terrorists and disrupt the finance and trafficking of people.