The incursion of terrorists from the northern states to the southwest of Nigeria was all too predictable. We had warned about that possibility over the years. The crisis is not from lack of warnings but from the failure to convert warnings into interoperable, cross-border security. There has been a steady expansion from border belts into SW corridors: After intensified operations up north, armed groups have exploited forest corridors through Kwara, Kogi, and into Ekiti, Oyo, Ondo, and Osun. They’ve entered the Ogun forests through Oyo. Rural dwellers have been warning the nation on social media for a while. Governments at all levels—especially state and local governments, failed their people.
The much-anticipated regional coordination through the Southwest Development Commission is yet to take off, so criminal networks cross state lines faster than intelligence and enforcement do. Individual responses by states in the belt are fragmented and pathetically inadequate. There are vast semi-governed corridors around the Old Oyo National Park which sit on precious metals and are attracting miners of all shapes. As we have seen elsewhere, banditry is a handmaiden of mining in some parts of Nigeria.
Unspeakable Horror
Because of the many fronts simultaneously open all over the country, security forces have been spread thin. Therefore, kidnapping economies have blossomed; coordinated abductions and ambushes along transit routes and farmlands are reshaping daily life and commerce. Kidnapping markets which are mature in the North are beginning to take root in the South.
The abduction of teachers, a nursing mother, students, and pupils—some of them as young as two years old—from the Ogbomosho axis has globally advertised our reversion to the dark ages. Mr Michael Oyedokun was one of the teachers abducted by bandits from the Community High School, Ahoro-Esinele. Other schools attacked by the bandits include Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota, and LA Primary School, Ogbomoso, all in Oriire Local Government. The gruesome recorded decapitation of Mr Oyedokun seems to have roused the larger society and the state authorities from their habitual somnambulance.
A journalist, social activist, and politician, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, elegised as follows:
How does a human being place a knife on the neck of another human being and slaughter him like a ram prepared for Ileya?
A harmless man. A law-abiding citizen. A teacher whose only “crime” was going to work to educate the future of our country…
Those eyes.
Those tears streaming helplessly down his face in his final moments.
They pierced my soul….
Terror Clip
Nigerians are now tired of reading from our communally authored book of lamentations. Where else in the world do terrorists kidnap people, demand ransom from their victims’ relatives using mobile phones, collect the negotiated ransom, and vanish into thin air to go and enjoy their loot? One of the audio clips shared on social media showed our level of helplessness.
Terrorist: Mama, speak to your people. If they don’t bring the ransom, we’ll kill you.
Mama: Hello my son, please hold on and speak to them. They are threatening to slaughter me.
Relative: Hello, my friend.
Terrorist: Hello, Omo Iya (speaks in Yoruba with unmistakable northern inflection). Good morning. Hope you’ve been told how much to pay for the life of your mother?
Relative: Yes. We are working hard. So far, we’ve raised N2.5 million
