Gumi’s Apologia For Bandits -By Kene Obiezu

In Nigeria, it is usually the ill-wind of tragedy that blows people onto the pedestal of notoriety. This is rightly proving to be the case for Mr.  Ahmad Gumi who has since become the middleman as the between bandits and the families of their  many victims. In fact, Mr. Gumi`s status has risen so that he even unofficially consults for the Nigerian government on banditry, dishing out unsolicited advice from time to time. In all this, the Department of State Security, usually so swift to interrogate those who raise poignant issues about Nigeria`s security, conveniently looks away. It has been coming for a while and it goes way back, indeed.

In 2009, irked by the extrajudicial killing of its leader, the terrorist group Boko Haram grew extremely venomous fangs, fangs  it has since sunk into the neck of Nigeria. Using Borno  State in Nigeria`s north-east as a launch pad, the sect has since ensured that its tremors have been felt all over the country and even in neighboring countries.

Schools, churches, mosques, residential buildings, markets among many others  have been reduced to dust by Boko Haram. Thousands have been slaughtered and many more displaced  in their own country. Livelihoods have been wiped out and many children taken as slaves. To put it mildly, Boko Haram`s wild orgy of death and destruction has brought to premature birth Nigeria`s worst nightmare.

Emboldened by Boko Haram`s criminal activities, other criminals who hitherto cowered in uncertainty have plucked perverse courage, and come into the open. What Boko Haram leave behind, bandits and herdsmen pounce on. The bandits in particular have come in for increasing scrutiny.

Many Nigerians have been slaughtered with many hearts broken by the unbridled criminal activities of the bandits. The bandits have also proven unique in the sense that while Boko Haram and the IPOB, long proscribed as terrorist groups by the Nigerian government, have never hidden their goals or leaders, the bandits have remained largely unknown and largely faceless. They have let their devastating modus operandi speak loudly for them.

Particularly, the bandits have refined the art of abduction for ransom. Kaduna state has been their major playground. Hapless students have been abducted and held for days with horrified family members forced to cough out huge amounts as ransom. So audacious has the criminal courage of the bandits been that in August 2021, they launched a successful attack on the Nigeria Defence Academy in Afaka, Kaduna State. Two soldiers were killed and one abducted.

The bandits never had a voice until now, and at the moment, it appears Mr. Gumi is their only interlocutor. If that is the case, he has questions to answer to Nigerians who have suffered unspeakable atrocities at the hands of the bandits. Since it appears that they speak through Mr. Gumi who is in turn not shy about subtly defending them in his public representations, he must be able to somehow account for their actions, or at least, his contacts with them.

 In 2017, the Federal Government moved with lightening haste to tar the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) with the brush of terrorism. Sweepingly branding the IPOB a terrorist group in spite of the appallingly scant evidence to support a proscription of that magnitude gave the Federal Government the dais on which it has gleefully stood to pound a sledgehammer on the flies of IPOB. The IPOB may be a disruptive influence in Nigeria`s south-east, but at the time it was branded a terrorist group, it had not done enough to attract   such a grave appellation.

But assuming the IPOB had done enough to be called a terrorist group, bandits have done far worse. So why has there been official reluctance to name them the terrorists that they are?

Mr.  Gumi recently took the position that branding bandits as terrorists would escalate their deadly attacks on innocent Nigerians. But the flaw in his argument was highlighted by the fact that there was no counter-argument to the effect that not branding them terrorists would de-escalate their attacks on Nigerians. In what can be safely branded an apologia for bandits even if not for banditry, Mr.  Gumi not only praised himself for his efforts to appease the bandits, he also had some choice harsh words for those calling for their proscription.

As the project that Nigeria is faces increasingly strident questions over its viability, it has become an unofficial policy of government to apportion different strokes to different folks. As inequity and inequality have raged, summarily denying the goose what is given the gander as sauce, it has become far too easy to selectively administer power. But this time around, there is no sidestepping the truth.

With the outrage bandits have visited on innocent Nigerians and their families, terrorism and terrorists have no better examples at the moment. Thus, the Nigerian government must shelve its reservations, and call bandits what they are. But the government should not stop at just naming them, it must also shame them by bringing their heinously criminal activities to a halt.

The urgency is a fierce one and it must leave behind Mr. Gumi, his co-apologists and the arresting apologia they have rolled out for bandits. No one person or group should be able to hold the mighty Federal Republic of Nigeria to ransom.

Kene Obiezu

keneobiezu@gmail.com