Kaduna : Boiling Cauldron Of Brazen Criminality – Gora Dauda
The Oasis Reporters
December 31, 2017
For all the wrong reasons, Kaduna, our Kaduna State has since lost her pride of place as the supposed Centre of Learning that some would wish to have us believe.
By way of a short journey into history, Kaduna was the capital of the then Northern Region during the First Republic and remained the capital of the then North Central State and when Katsina State was created the former Zaria Province became Kaduna State.
Way back during the colonial enterprise, Kaduna was the place to be in which is why it attracted people from well beyond her borders.
For all of her history, Kaduna has been home for many a settler. People from well beyond our borders as a State found Kaduna very attractive to settle in and this is largely due to the hospitable mature of the indigenous people.
Down the line, no place is likely to attract settlers when security cannot be guaranteed. Kaduna suddenly began to regress into insecurity for religious reasons.
If ever there was a religious upheaval in this country, you can bet that such started in Kaduna.
There were the Kafanchan, Zangon Kataf, Kasuwan Magani, the Miss World Beauty Pageant riots, the ABU student’s riots, the 2011 Post Election crisis as well as the Shiite crises not too long ago.
All these in no small measure have morphed to pull our Kaduna to the middle of nowhere.
In all previous security challenges, Kaduna did manage to somehow recover quickly enough for a return to business as usual. The resolve of the people has always been central to the recovery.
The return to democracy appears to have brought about more challenges than may have been anticipated. Starting from the 2011 Post Election violence of 2011 and the lethargy with which the investigation was handled, impunity found comfortable accommodation in the hearts of the perpetrators of the heinous crimes unleashed on our hapless populace.
It was not until after the current government in Kaduna took power that the State’s chief security officer let it be known that he was or had paid some terrorist Fulani gangs not to undertake any more reprisal killings. He did this after assuring his supposed tribesmen that it was one of theirs calling the shots as governor in Kaduna State.
The payment meant as compensation for Fulani cattle and property losses did not impress the Fulani killer squads. The killings have not stopped rather, the situation has continued to deteriorate.
In trying to find out the causative factors responsible for the continued state of insecurity in Kaduna, of a truth, the very nature of governance in the State must receive priority attention. When a leadership at that level is so unmindful of the utterances it has continued to make which are so inimical to peace, such a leadership must be held largely responsible for the insecurity in the State.
In Kaduna we have a situation where at the whims of the State’s chief security officer police personnel who are indigenes of Kaduna were posted out to other Police Commands which would presuppose that they had a role in the deteriorating security situation. This is quite absurd to any rational mind. We are almost in a situation where everyone else is the problem aside His Excellency.
That the present Kaduna State government campaigned on the slogan of ‘Making Kaduna Great Again’ is so unbelievable given the very traumatic experiences our people have been going through.
Thus far, if there is any achievement at all recorded by this government, it is in the number of persons the governor has put out of work.
Putting people out of work is the greatest injustice any government can ever unleash on the populace particularly so if such a government had job creation as a major campaign promise it had given.
The wider implications of such anti people policies are many.
Aside the social dislocation affectung many dependants, there is the question of what to do next in a depressed economy such as ours. Given also the level of insecurity in our State characterized by kidnapping for ransom, armed banditry and cattle rustling the security situation is likely to be compounded.
As things stand, the dictator in Sir Kashim Ibrahim House and his policies are obviously the greatest threat to security. The population in Kaduna State is virtually in a stage of siege since only a few can afford to stray far from their homes where there is limited security for fear of being kidnapped.
The kidnappers are so brazen in their trade that in some outlying areas of the metropolis they go kidnapping people from their homes.
The police authorities appear helpless even with the availability of 21st Century technogies which can help in tracking and hunting down the criminals.
Travellers are passing through very hard times accessing Kaduna town either from the Birnin Gwari or the Abuja axis. The Kaduna – Saminaka, Kaduna – Kafanchan roads have been taken over by the bandits.
To put the situation into the correct perspective, the bandits have taken over the unoccupied spaces and we are now marooned and holed up in our houses.
From the attitude of the dictator, there is not going to be any respite any time soon. A recommendation to the effect that the dictator should tone down his trademark belligerance and his incendiary rhetoric as well as having a rethink of this government’s anti – people policies could have made the difference.
Written by Dauda Gora
