Sankera: Heads Of Tails We Lose -By Sesugh Akume

Two weeks ago there was violence in Katsina-Ala the Sankera headquarters at the weekend up to the next Monday resulting in tens of fatalities, scores wounded, houses burnt, and so on. Others wonder what precisely is going on? Some say nobody knows, or maybe they’re too scared to tell. Well, I know, and I’m not scared to tell. So here is, in summary:

Sankera is composed of 3 local government areas: Katsina-Ala, Ukum, and Logo. Of these there are 5 kindreds or houses: Ikyurav, Shitile, Tongov, Ukum, and Ugondo. There’s also Tombo and Turan. Let me begin at the end by saying this is NOT an inter-house, inter-kindred internecine strife, as others understand it to be, it’s purely an inter-gang warfare. A battle for supremacy amongst them. There are 2 sets of violences in Sankera, when it’s not the Fulani terrorist herdsmen, then it’s by the ethnic terrorists. Either way the average citizen loses.

The story on how gangs came into being and how they control our lives dates back 2 decades ago when politicians needed to have private armies to unleash terror on everyone to intimidate, crush enemies and perceived enemies, steal elections, and generally feel invincible. They have been procuring their arms, facilitating their trainings, empowering them financially, giving them legitimacy, and so forth. Well, the lead terrorist now is Terwase Akwaza aka Ghana. I wouldn’t go into how he was created, empowered, and now invincible so to speak. It’s an entire topic of its own. Different factions splintered from his. Everyone went to their own tents and started their gangs. Amongst each gang are fugitives from everywhere. So, Ghana is from Shitile, that’s where he’s based too, but whereas members of his group are mainly Shitile, you have bandits from everywhere belonging there. Others understand that when his group attacks somewhere say in Ukum, then it means it’s a Shitile v. Ukum war. Very far from it.

What makes it complex is when they attack, they don’t attack only their fellow gang members, they kill anyone in sight. That’s what happened at the weekend in Katsina-Ala. According to Ghana’s group, this commander of a splinter group in Ikyurav owes their ordnances and must return them. They unleashed terror by killing scores in 2 separate locations on the same day. Innocent people. But this was to be expected. One gang member from that camp was in Ikyurav months ago to pull a stunt and was caught. He was pulverised, and I mean literally. He wasn’t killed, he was smashed and ground to death. There was a reprisal later, 7 were murdered. But those who would’ve retaliated were prevailed upon. Those who prevailed on them wanted to prevent this that happened at the weekend. Those  wise people in Ikyurav didn’t want it to escalate, and seem an us v. them war. Then came an attack at the weekend, and yet another on the same day. The others in Ikyurav couldn’t take it any more. They went burning the houses of every Shitile person they could in Katsina-Ala.

Here’s why we have a useless government: everyone in the know knew this was going to happen (I did). And it went on to happen. After it had all happened, soldiers were sent in to quell the crisis which they did. The killing and burning stopped. Some arrests were made. The usual fire brigade approach. And that’ll be it. The most hurtful part is where Nigerian air force jets went to bomb 2 locations in Shitile. What for?! It resulted in the needless deaths of innocent noncombatants. If they want to get Ghana, it’s not by bombing and destroying their enclaves. They’ve been doing this for years, what has the outcome been? We like meaningless braggadocio. A government that can’t use her intelligence services to deactivate the terrorists from within and apprehend whomever they want enjoys dramatising emptiness by vain show.

It’s not Fulani herdsmen attacks, so don’t expect to hear much from Governor Ortom about it in the media. He’s busy. He won a reelection. Both the senator and rep aren’t returning so don’t expect to hear from them. The incoming ones, well, still don’t expect to hear from them. The state assembly members, I don’t know if they really know their left from right. The chiefs, don’t expect to hear from them. Basically, everyone within the state is beholden to the governor, so they all move in the direction he’s going. Buhari doesn’t know anything he’s doing so don’t expect to hear from him either. So here are we, at the mercy of all kinds of terrorists: Fulani herdsmen, ethnic militia and gangs, and when you survive them a bomb from the Nigerian military is likely to locate you.