Can The New Chief Of Defence Staff Hearken To The Cry Of His People -By Kene Obiezu

It would always be unfair to pin the hopes of an entire people on one man’s shoulders. But many times, life throws up heroes just for those occasions.

The moment Muhammadu Buhari signed out of office as Nigeria’s fifteenth president on May 29, 2023,the people of Southern Kaduna breathed a sigh of relief, and it was not just because Bola Ahmed Tinubu came into office.

The palpable relief was also because Buhari’s exit meant the exit of Nasir El-Rufai who had been in power in Kaduna for eight years.

Under Buhari and El-Rufai, the security situation in Kaduna State, which ironically hosts some of Nigeria’s premier military institutions had rapidly deteriorated with ruthless terrorists taking advantage of the historic fragility of the state to seed terror and sow chaos.

In Southern Kaduna, long a flash point of the ethnic and religious tensions the state has come to be known for, hardly a week passed without terrorists carrying out deadly attacks on defenceless villagers. Dozens were brutally killed with countless livelihoods reduced to dust.

Bandits in the state also made sure to target students of different institutions as banditry quickly became one of the most lucrative businesses in the country. When an audacious attack breached the defenses of the Nigeria Defence Academy in August 2021, Nigerians felt a forceful surge of humiliation.

While the killings raged through Southern Kaduna in the past eight years, the Kaduna State Government and, crucially, the Federal Government struck a posture of helplessness. It broke many Nigerian hearts that while a region was being systemically decimated, the government conveniently chose to ignore its obligations under the unwritten social contract it had with the people.

Thus, when Bola Ahmed Tinubu stepped in with his “Renewed Hope” agenda, there was hope no matter how little, that perhaps under a new administration, the killers would be put in their place.

Nigeria’s toxic brand of dysfunctional diversity ensures that everything, no matter how little or insignificant, quickly takes a religious or ethnic shade. While the killings persisted in Southern Kaduna, there were allegations and suggestions that they had more to do with the religion and ethnicity of the victims than the government’s seeming helplessness.

In many ways, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appears to be the most political of all the presidents Nigeria has had since 1999. His political life, especially as Governor in Lagos State and as a kingmaker in the Southwest and Nigeria as a whole, show the trajectory of a man who has mentored many political heavyweights and navigated treacherous political waters specifically because he knows how to play politics.

His contentious election In February will long remain the subject of fierce debates in Nigeria, but he may just have the Midas touch for a country fractured by many fractious issues.

While for many years his predecessor ignored calls to diversify the appointments of the country’s security chiefs despite abundant evidence that those in office were faltering badly, Tinubu has moved to give each of Nigeria’s regions a sense of belonging in the security stakes of the country.

But his masterstroke in the appointments of the security chiefs appears to be in his choice of Major General Christopher G Musa as the Chief of Defence Staff.

In going for a minority Christian from Zangon Kataf in the minority Southern Kaduna where people have suffered unspeakably in the past eight years, Tinubu may have hit the bull’s eye of insecurity in the region.

In taking someone from a long-suffering people and putting him in charge, Tinubu may just have made the most audacious move made in eight years to strangle insecurity in the region.

Suspicion has long been rife that the insecurity in Kaduna, especially in Southern Kaduna is systematic, targeted at decimating communities that don’t identify with certain ethnic groups and religions. If that is the case, the problem indeed runs deeper than it appears.

When insecurity becomes a weapon, the danger is at once immeasurable and indescribable. There is indeed no telling who could get caught in the deadly web.

As the Chief of Defense Staff, General Musa would have his hands full not just with the insecurity which engulfs his native Southern Kaduna, but that which infuriatingly afflicts Nigeria as a whole.

If he can solve the puzzle, he will go down in Nigerian lore as the man under whose unflinching gaze Nigeria returned to peace.