BUHARI MOVES TO DISARM THE SOUTH AGAIN

Basil Okoh

***Buhari Disarming Southern Nigerians For His Kinsmen?***

Muhammadu Buhari has just thrown another punch to the face of Southern and Middle Belt Nigeria. He announced Monday May 11, 2011 that he has approved the establishment of a National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW).

No prize for guessing who is to head the Centre. President Buhari announced the appointment of Major General AM Dikko (Retd) as the Centre’s National Coordinator. General Dikko is a Fulani man. President Buhari is so predictable that you can swear by his unrelenting nepotism.

The creation of the Centre for Small Arms Control is motion without movement and no one should be fooled by Buhari’s response to the public demand for action on the breakdown in security nationwide.

He is once again working to fool Nigerians on arms control by deflecting from the real cause of the problem and abstracting it. The twin causes of the security problem are Fulani killings and Boko Haram terrorism.

The Armed Forces of which he is head and Commander in Chief supplies three quarters of the arms used by Boko Haram to kill Nigerian soldiers and terrorize the populations with nearly three million displaced and in IDP Camps. Where else to look for solutions than among his officers guarding the armouries?

The next place should be among the Fulani herdsmen and bandits on the rampage killing, maiming and raping in all the geopolitical zones and communities in Nigeria. MACBAN has accepted to sponsoring and arming the marauding herdsmen. Between the two terrorist groups can be found the overwhelming majority of small arms in the Nigerian space.

Sometime in 2015 and again in February 2018, the then Inspector General of Police demanded the submission of all guns and hunting rifles to the police, nationwide. All privately owned guns licensed and unlicensed, including pump action rifles and flint guns of a hundred years old were surrendered to all police locations in the regions. The police also banned the use of explosives even in quarry sites nationwide. Every gun owner in the South and Middle Belt of Nigeria had his gun taken away by the police.

Less than six months after the entire guns in the South and Middle Belt were mopped up, seized and taken into custody to Abuja, armed Fulani herdsmen appeared in the horizon in Kajuru, Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Benue and other Southern and Middle Belt Communities, kidnapping, burning, killing and raping.

Many communities were destroyed and sacked as the people could not defend themselves. Their means of self and community defense were taken away by Buhari’s Government.

The criminals were all Fulani, Buhari’s own people and his recorded response to the mayhem was jarring. He asked us to find ways to accommodate the criminals in our communities. And since then, Nigeria has been forced into a state of anomie with increasing rapidity of killings and destruction.

Southern and Middle Belt Communities, continue to be victims of marauding kidnappers in the form of Fulani herdsmen and killing, maiming and raping has become central to the overall plan for an unprecedented land grab by Fulani in Nigeria.

It is trite to say that Buhari and his Government has lost the trust and confidence of the Nigerian people, particularly Christians and people of the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria. No one can count the dead and the lost to Fulani vandalism in the communities anymore.

And no one can count the dead soldiers from Southern communities who are betrayed and killed everyday in a war in which Government operatives are the principal suppliers of arms to the enemy with which they are being killed.

The soldiers themselves have lost trust in their government for rehabilitating captured enemy Boko Haram terrorists who are integrated into the army as spies and scouts for Boko Haram and continue to shoot and kill their Commanders and soldiers from within the army.

The fear has since become palpable in the Northeastern fronts that there is a looming unification of Boko Haram terrorists with Northern Muslim Forces for a final and apocalyptic push for jihad and conquest of Southern Nigeria. When that happens, Southern and Middle Belt soldiers may be unprepared and become toast to a band of blood thirsty ideologues.

Let us wait for the call of the muezzin.

About the author

Ayo

I am an Educator and a proponent of Human Rights. There is so much poverty and disease around the world, especially in Africa, the richest continent on planet earth. This situation is brought upon the people of Africa as a result of extreme corruption, nepotism and bad governance by her leaders. I therefore decided to add my voice to making the continent of Africa, and the world at large a better place; thus the birth of MaTaZ ArIsInG.