DENNIS OGU

A few weeks ago, it was reported that a woman in Kaduna State was sentenced to death by a High Court judge for working as informant to bandits.

In another development, recently, a young man was reported to have been condemned to 20 years imprisonment for withholding important information about a notorious bandit.

In all honesty, all the people who have in one way or another contributed to the violence meted out on innocent and peace loving Nigerians over the years should either be sentenced to death or to any number of years commensurate with the degree of offence they have committed.

Terrorism everywhere in the world is a capital offence and should equally be met with capital punishment. As the saying goes that “he who hails a thief is also a thief himself.”

Therefore, this woman who has been aiding bandits can properly be addressed as a bandit, because for crime to succeed in any society there must be different people in their respective capacities who work together to make it successful as accomplices.

This crackdown should also be taken beyond prosecuting ordinary helpers. These bandits are said to have informants in the Nigerian security forces. It is also said that they have financiers in the political class, who also shield them . What is the fate of those ones? And what is the federal government and the security operatives doing to fish them out and prosecute them?

Bringing them to book will go a long way towards stemming the rate of banditry and terrorism in the country.

It would be recalled that when he was governor of Rivers State, Rt Hon. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, the vice presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), pronounced death sentence on kidnappers, and he meant everything about it. With that, he was able to check the rate of kidnapping in his state then. The federal government should now borrow a leaf from him and deal decisively with every form of security breach in the country today.

But come to think of it, these judgements appear laughable in the sense that it is like leaving the anus that farted to give a knock on the innocent head. Till this very moment, the federal government has not given any good reason why they always pardon some of the bandits, calling them “prodigal sons”, “our brothers” in the guise that they have repented – after they have killed many people, rendered scores homeless and many others permanently disabled.

How can you forgive the principal actors and then turn around to condemn those who ordinarily help them achieve their evil purposes? Does it mean that those aiding them are “unrepentant”, or their role is more criminal than that of the bandits? And what criteria does the Nigerian government use to measure their level of repentance? Or how do they even ascertain that they have repented in the first place?

This judgement on the woman is like the kangaroo judgement described in Ken Saro-Wiwa’s “Prisoners of Jebs”. What precedence is the federal government and the judiciary trying to set by setting bandits free and condemning those who are said to be merely helping them? It is still a very difficult thing to digest!

Has the Nigerian Security Intelligence Community ever tried to probe into what might lead a sane citizen to be aiding bandits and terrorists? Have they tried to investigate why a citizen would serve as a mole to supposed enemies of the State?

One cannot rule out the fact that a good number of the so-called helpers are victims and not partners. Don’t the security agents consider that some people may have been threatened with dire consequences if they failed to fall in line or do the biddings of the bandits?

Currently, many Nigerians feel the power of the bandits more than they acknowledge the protection of the Nigerian security agents, or rather, they see themselves as being in greater danger for disobeying the bandits than reposing confidence in the Nigerian security forces for protection. Nobody wants to trade with his/her life.

What assurance is there for the citizens that their lives will be safe after reporting the bandits or exposing what they know about them? This makes us recall Idi Amin’s funny remark that “there is freedom of speech, but there may not be freedom after the speech.”

The Nigerian security architecture has in many ways proven incapable of protecting the citizens. It’s not about their competence but about being committed to their statutory responsibility. There are abductions, mass killings, displacements and other security breaches every now and then in different states, without any significant effort in stopping them or forestalling subsequent attacks.

Other posers are why would a citizen feel safe and eager to report criminals the security agents have been unable and unwilling to apprehend? Why would he feel safe to report criminals that hold open and elaborate meetings with some government officials? Why would he feel safe to report criminals who are said to be sponsored by some powerful politicians and government officials? Why would he feel safe to report criminals who are said to have collaborators in the Nigerian security? Who would protect this citizen when those criminals discover and come after him? And who has prevented those criminals from having their way on innocent citizens all this while?

It is crystal clear therefore, that Nigerian citizens are under siege with the level of insecurity in the land and the way non-state actors are taking over control of different parts of the country unchecked. It appears everybody has become a captive in the hands of bandits and kidnappers.

So, it is either a person they want to use as an agent complies with them or put himself and his family in grave danger since nobody will be there to protect him or her when they turn against him.

So, arresting, detaining or sentencing those who are accused of aiding bandits will never help matters. It is simply cutting off the only line that would have led the security agents to more and relevant discoveries – discoveries that would have helped them in apprehending the bandits who are supposed to be the ultimate target in any meaningful fight against insecurity in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, it remains laughable that our gallant officers stop at arresting informants and helpers to bandits; and our learned gentlemen at the bench also boldly stop at condemning same persons to death. Yet we all are aware that the bandits those people are helping are holding open and elaborate meetings with known government officials, and are not hiding their identities and locations.

These bandits have social media accounts; they have phone numbers they use like every other Nigerian. What is stopping our security agents from tracing them to wherever they may be, arrest and prosecute them?

Presently, there are reports that some bandits are threatening to kill Rev. Dachomo for criticising them and exposing their evil deeds. What is the Nigerian security forces doing to arrest those people? There is every evidence that these threats are not sent from outside the country; so, why is it a rocket science for the Nigerian Security Intelligence to trace and apprehend these enemies of the state?

Please, our security and judicial institutions should stop playing the ostrich!