A Half Century Of Banditry In Nigeria

 By Chidi Odinkalu

Since well before Nigeria’s return to elective governance in 1999, the country has been overtaken by a progressive escalation of what Hannah Arendt in her classic On Violence called “a massive intrusion of criminal violence into politics”. In contemporary Nigerianism, the word for this is “banditry”. 

“Bandits” is a conveniently capacious bogeyman for insecurity in Nigeria that precludes necessary questions as to the provenance of the descent into lawlessness. It captures diverse elements that may include terrorists, cultists, herdsmen, kidnappers, criminal gangs, and militants. 

Plateau Carnage And Antics Of A Low-Road Government

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Saturday, June 23, Dr. Sylvester Ugoh, former Minister of Education, sent me a video clip of Chimamanda Adichie delivering a speech as the Harvard University 2018 Class Day Speaker.

*President Buhari 

It was the quintessential Chimamanda at her literary best – evocative and enchanting. She was selected by the Harvard students, as it is the tradition, to act the role, another validation for the lady of letters who has become Nigeria’s foremost 21^st century literary ambassador.
I don’t know what informed the leitmotif of her speech which she titled, “Above All Ese, Do Not Lie,” but she handled the concepts of falsehood and truth in a uniquely fascinating way asking some fundamental questions such as: “Should we call a lie, a lie? When is a lie, a lie?”

Fulani Herdsmen And (Il)logic Of Self-Defence

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It is now over two weeks since President Muhammadu Buhari ordered security operatives to arrest and prosecute illegal arm-bearers. The president first gave the order towards the end of last month during a National Security Council meeting attended by the defence minister, the service chiefs, among others. He repeated the order when he visited Nasarawa State this month.

Here, we are confronted with two possibilities. One is that the order has been fully complied with by security operatives, leading to the mass arrest and prosecution of illegal arm-bearers. The other is that the order has been completely disdained by security operatives. Sadly, the second possibility is the reality today. Nothing underscores this more than the fact that herdsmen who chiefly belong to the category of illegal arm-bearers are still on the prowl despite the presidential order. Indeed, the order has rather become a source of impetus to them to illegally bear arms and use them to inflict pain and death on their victims. 

Pres Buhari, Take A Hard Look At Nigeria’s Map

By Okey Ndibe

I recently surveyed President Muhammadu Buhari’s top appointments recently and was left wondering when last he took a long, hard look at Nigeria’s map. Before the president makes another important political appointment, he would do well to spend some time looking at the map of the country that’s under his charge.

*President Buhari

President Buhari’s disdain for geopolitical spread and religious diversity in his appointments is so stark as to constitute a scandal. As far as appointments go, it’s as if the man believes that Nigeria is reducible to one half of its geography, the north, and one major religion, Islam.

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Buhari was frequently characterized as a man given to excessive clannishness. Some critics alleged that his fealty to the northern half of Nigeria and partiality to fellow adherents of the Islamic faith trumped his belief in Nigeria and commitment to treat people of other faiths with fairness.

Since his presidential ambition aroused such anxiety, Mr. Buhari might have taken care to reassure Nigerians—as he stated in his inaugural speech—that he belonged to all of them. Instead, he seems to have gone out of his way to validate his critics’ worst fears. His personnel decisions as president have suggested a man whose mindset is as sectional as his political instincts are terrible. In one year as president, his appointments have deeply disappointed many Nigerians’ expectations of equity. He has operated as if unaware of the longstanding requirement that important political appointments ought to reflect the country’s federal character.

I believe every section of Nigeria has a pool of talented people. Therefore, the president’s default stance, choosing candidates for major positions from his own geographic area and religious group, is troubling. Is Mr. Buhari’s vision so blinkered that, each time he looks at Nigeria, he sees (mostly) Muslims and Northerners? And has he no handlers and advisers willing to speak honestly to him, to save him from his parochial instincts, to tell him, quite simply, that his appointments don’t tell a flattering story about him?

During Mr. Buhari’s first few months in office, some excused his lopsided appointments on the ground that he needed to surround himself with people he knew closely, whose loyalty he could count on. But even that apologia was untenable. Here was a man who ran for the Nigerian Presidency four times before he got elected. I don’t recall him professing that, if elected, he would fashion himself primarily into a Northern president. Surely, we should expect that a man who spent so much time and energy seeking to govern his country would have made some effort to broaden his base of loyalists.