In this interview with ADELEKE ADESANYA, Hon Abubarkar Chika-Adamu, a member of the 8th National Assembly, says Buhari-led government is playing politics with insecurity in the country. He also claims that Niger State has been hijacked by bandits who have practically chased the military out of the state. Excerpts:
There are reports that bandits have taken over major parts of Niger State. How true is this?
Let me be very frank with you, the state has been virtually abandoned by the governor of the state. What we have in the state in not a governor, but a chief of staff without command under him. In this state, people are going through a hell. It would have been better if you have a proactive governor who probably has the feelings, empathy for the people. The governor was expected to have visited the people who are the major victims of this crisis.
Are there no security men in the state?
Of course, there are security men. But if the security men probably are doing the little they could and they have not seen any motivation from somebody who is responsible, somebody who has been voted into office to take care of these people but boast always as the chief security officer. The security men could do very little to help the situation.
I was a member of the National Assembly. I knew very well that the police is underfunded and certain functions have to be augmented by the state in terms of their logistics. So, if the governor show less or little concern about the people, the situation will be worse as what we have today. Yes, the governor may not solve the problem, but the world will get to hear it from him if he has shown sympathy. Police have been neglected in that state and I don’t see them helping the situation.
There is information that Nigerian Army troops were deployed in the state to stop the bandits. Are they not functioning?
To be very fair to the whole system, the soldiers could be overstretched and they are very little to serve. I want to tell you, if you know the enormity of the problem we have within that enclave, it is going out of hand, out of the control of the Federal Government. When you start from villages they call Alauwa; that’s from Shiroro, Munya and even Ogaraji Local Government, the three constituencies I represented, I want to tell you, all the remote areas which probably must have constituted maybe forty or fifty percent of the constituency are under siege.
In these areas, nobody can move freely. Even the military in these areas could do nothing. For instance, some two weeks ago, the military men in Erana were chased out when the whole place was attacked. As it is, if you run to the military where they are stationed, they will tell you this is where we were asked to stay. They will say they cannot move forward and I quite understand them because they are afraid of being ambushed. They are afraid of a lot of things. And people have people have been left to the mercy of God only and there is no human effort to add to God’s protection.
Do you mean that the military could not help the situation?
I want to tell you there are virtually no efforts from the military. The people are there on their own. If you come to my Local Government headquarters, Kagara, you will cry because you will see children who were chased out from their villages walking naked because they could not even come out with their clothing.
So, as I’m speaking to you, I could recall clearly, I swear by Allah, on Friday, immediately I finished prayers I burst into tears when people were telling me what is happening. You need to see children without clothing. Most of them have been displaced with their parents from their homes. To be sincere with you, my area has been devastated. My area is becoming like a no-man’s land. Though we have few mobile police, they can’t go to the remote areas except for the men of vigilante groups that are even making some efforts. They seem to known the terrain very well and again they are not armed, they use local gun and they cannot fight those people with sophisticated weapons that are even above Ak47. I can tell you that we are in a big security mess.
On the policemen who you said are not doing enough, don’t you think the command headquarters need to be briefed on the development?
Let me be very frank with you, Nigeria police or the Inspector General of Police is not fair in his statement. The Nigeria Police categorically said that they will withdraw the police officers that are working with VIPs, but let them give you the list. How many people did they take away? I was a member of the National Assembly, when I was a member of National assembly, we then have about three hundred and twenty thousand policemen in this country and almost forty per cent of Nigeria police covers the VIP. So, that’s to tell you there is shortage of manpower, there is shortage in the police to cover certain areas. Let me be fair to the Nigeria Police, the little police that we have within the community they can’t do it. They are so little they can’t do it. So, maybe be when we say twenty police men to approach heavily armed one hundred people, what can they do? So, let me be fair, the Nigerian government is not sincere if they are sincere I told somebody one time, if the police IG is sure, let him give me the nominal role of the police and let me go and identify, I will work as a team identify where each and every police is, I will publish it in this country. They didn’t do it, so we should stop deceiving Nigerians. The system is not ready to protect the citizens, that’s the truth. Imagine the police will give a truck of policemen to an individual to protect him because he is rich while thousands of people are left in danger. Is that a country?
Are you saying the Federal Government deliberately neglected this state and the areas you mentioned?
Yes. I can say Federal Government neglected us. But again I will attribute the problem to the incapacity of the governor to have empathy for the people that voted him into office. I will always repeat it. The question here is that how many times has he spoken to the President? How much has he shouted? How many times has he made noise to the public? Let me be frank with you, they don’t want people to know the security situation of the state. Let me tell you, that is the consequence of voting an incompetent governor. We’ve voted an incompetent person who is a joker, who in the history of his life, out of his six years now, about six years in public office, you cannot count, I repeat you can’t count that he has spent seven hundred days in that state; I stand to be corrected by anybody.
If I am to be sincere with you, everyone is not safe in this state. There was a district head in my area; six months ago they kidnapped him. He spent a long period, about two months with them, a ransom was paid and they released him. About a month ago, they kidnap the same district head after he returned, they also kidnapped him again and they killed him. As I’m speaking to you, the governor did not go personally to the local Government to even see and condole with us. And the same area before he was kidnapped and killed, after first one, another district head was also kidnapped after they took seven million naira ransom. As I was told by our people, they beat the people that took the ransom there, chased them out and they moved the district head away, for almost one and half months we did not hear from him. And the governor did nothing.
Now that the nation has new set of service chiefs, don’t you think there will be a solution to crisis in this state?
Let me tell you, how many military men do we have? So, I don’t even have confidence that the new service chiefs have good intentions. They may have good desire, they may have the zeal but look almost the whole north is under siege. So, where will they send the military? Where will they not send? Sometimes, I don’t blame them. I want somebody to just have empathy for me, maybe if he has empathy for me, I will grow up, I will feel motivated and then maybe have some kind of relief. And even know that it is beyond his power, but the new military service chiefs cannot do magic. They can’t do magic. It is the same military men they will use. For instanc, the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chief of Army Staff were both at the Boko Haram front. It was the current Chief of Army Staff that replaced Irabor. They are not special human beings. The most important thing is for them to pay attention to the cries of the people. Even the Commander-in-Chief himself, how many times has he gone to the war front? How many times people were killed in a place and he visited them? This is how to charge up people to discharge their responsibilities. So, even the commander-in-chief is not even committed. If he is committed, look we have seen presidents all over the world that when something happens, in the next few hours, even if they are on a foreign mission, they will leave and come back home. We have seen how military officers were killed in Lagos, the President was on a foreign trip; he didn’t come back. So, what are we saying in Nigeria? So, I don’t see anything spectacular in the new service chiefs. Of course, the soldiers may feel motivated that if they change their bosses to new ones. But for me, I see nothing spectacular about the whole thing unless the commander-in-chief decided to do the needful. This is not about changing of service chiefs, it is about him also being committed, showing citizens that he cares and paying attention and visiting the troops wherever they are.
Do you see conspiracy in the fight against insurgency by the military?
Well, you see for somebody to identify conspiracy, you need to get clear information. You cannot assume; so I cannot at this my position. I’m not that privileged to know whether conspiracy is playing out. But again, I want those responsible to do the needful, to do what they are supposed to do.
So, what do you think needs to be done to take the state back from bandits as you claimed?
I think the President needs to get out from the comfort of this Villa. He has to be everywhere and that is when people will be motivated. Apart from this, there should be sincerity in his dealings. Look at Nigeria today, when your loved one is being kidnapped, you don’t even report to the police. All you need to do is to go and pay the ransom. Why? Because when you report, nothing will be done. I just don’t understand why the Government of Nigeria will not come out with a way to nip this in the bud. I remember that in those days, there used to be what they called marked money. So, why did Government of Nigeria not use this money to get these people? With this money, easily you can arrest thief and kidnappers.
We hope they will do the needful because as it is now, the case is getting worse. Even in the South West, we heard what happened where people will be hijacked on the road. They will kidnap people, rape people and they will ask people to pay ransom, and eventually they even kill the victim. So, it’s like insecurity is growing and spreading to every part of the country and we hope that the President will be awake on time to do something about it.
Are you saying the government does not listen to the peoples’ cry?
When you look at it initially, when people were crying about this issue, they thought some people were against their government and allowed it to grow. As I told you, you can see when I was in the House of Representatives, I raised that alarm but they refused to act. They said I was trying to castigate the APC government, so now this is where the castigation is moving us. We play politics with the lives of the security men, soldiers or with the kids. This is where we are today. It has over grown in the north, going towards the South. Before, the kidnapers in South-South would only kidnap oil workers for ransom, but today, they is kidnaping everywhere, anyhow in the South-West, South-South, and South-East.
Are you saying the government is playing politics with security in Nigeria?
Absolutely, they are playing politics because they came under the banner of we will protect you, we will defeat Boko Haram. How many times have they been saying we have killed Shekau? They also claimed they have disseminated Boko Haram. Let me be very frank with you, when I was in the House I wanted to raise the alarm that Boko Haram are growing beyond the North East, because a lot of people that were kidnapped will tell us in that camp they’ve been hearing names that are synonymous to the North East. I could remember I raised such alarm even on the floor of the House but nobody paid attention. So this is something that we allowed to over grow. When you talk then, they will say you don’t like Buhari, so we like Buhari and this is where we are. This is where the likeness has taken us. We will all die and let him be protected in the villa.
There are speculations that the president is trying to Fulanise the country. What is your reaction to this?
No! Let’s be very fair, no matter how I criticize on issues, I don’t think any president will Fulanize the country. That is not true, but again I think I told you maybe his weakness of by remaining in his comfort zone is entering in the villa without coming out is what I must speak. That is why you will see him giving contract without going out to visit the site and see what is going on there. Voting Buhari has thought me a bitter lesson. I will never vote for someone like that I like in my life, I will rather vote the president that can work, even if he’s from Ghana, Uganda or Zimbabwe. I don’t care where he comes from and I don’t need to like you before you become president or governor any longer. I don’t care where you come from. What matters is your capacity.