By Frank Oshanugor
Any Nigerian politician particularly a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who is not ashamed of the increasing state of banditry, terrorism, herdsmen attack, kidnapping etc in the country in general and the Northern part of Nigeria in particular, has a dead conscience and not worthy of any honour.
Watching some video clips on the social media or seeing photos of human beings killed in Plateau State and other parts of the country by bandits, herdsmen, kidnappers reveal the depth of our leaders’ level of unseriousness, emptiness, ungodliness and inhumanity as many of them could go to bed every day undisturbed when the people they are leading are dying innocently and ignobly too.
The situation becomes more worrisome when one sees the gusto with which many of the politicians, their cheer leaders and “attack dogs” boast on different platforms about their chances of return to power in 2027 as if they hold key to their lives. They are so assured of being in power for as long as they want because the machinery of state including the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) and judiciary are within their control and can always do their bidding. The current poor state of the country’s economy and general insecurity does not bother them a bit.
During the eight years ‘misrule’ of President Muhammadu Buhari under APC, Nigerians thought we had seen the worst with the kidnapping for ransom, banditry, terrorism and gruesome murders of innocent citizens across the various parts of the country.
This particular phenomenal occurrence of insecurity had become the most worrisome issue in the list of challenges facing the citizenry during the Buhari administration. As patient as Nigerians have always been, there was a great expectation that whoever would succeed Buhari should be able to reverse the trend if not completely but at least marginally.
Remarkably, the issue of insecurity had topped the campaign agenda of different political parties as the average Nigerian believed that nothing meaningful can be achieved in atmosphere of insecurity.
Interestingly, during one of such public engagements of political gladiators, in the days leading to the 2023 general election, former Governor of Borno State, Alhaji Kashim Shettima who was picked as Vice Presidential aspirant by Bola Ahmed Tinubu (Presidential candidate of APC) had appeared as a poster boy during the event. So, he had to answer all the questions for his absentee principal.
Probably unconscious of what ought to be his constitutional role if voted into office and the fact that the Vice President is not the Commander-in-Chief, Shettima ostensibly over-rated himself by declaring that Tinubu by virtue of his background as an accountant would concern himself more with the economy while himself Shettima would lead the fight against terrorists, bandits, kidnappers etc once they were voted into power.
The campaign had since ended with election held. Here we are now with Tinubu as President and Shettima as his Vice. Two years into their administration, Vice President Kassim Shettima is very far away from the theatre of war obviously because he is not the constitutional Commander-in-Chief, while President Tinubu is either in France or elsewhere looking for more loans for Nigeria instead of war front.
Talking about being in the war front in the literary sense of it, one should expect President Tinubu to show deep empathy about the precious lives being lost and engage the security chiefs more seriously with the task of finding enduring solution to the killings. This should not be the time to travel to France for a whole two weeks for less important things. Life of one citizen should be a matter of concern to the President by action and not lip service. We are tired of expression of condolences and unfulfilled promises of giving justice to the dead while the culprits are walking freely on the streets.
Similarly for Vice President Shettima, as someone who knows the terrain so much in the Northern part of Nigeria, I would recommend that even though he is not the Commander-in-Chief, he could take a cue from former Senator Shehu Sani who has recently taken his Fulani brothers to task. Sani has asked them to go and educate their fellow Fulanis who have brought much shame to their race through indulgence in terrorism, kidnapping, banditry, herdsmen’s attack and so on. They are reportedly more among the blood suckers in the North and elsewhere.
Since Shettima’s APC is hoping to rule Nigeria for many years to come with him as a possible successor to Tinubu in Aso Rock come 2031, it will be in his interest to begin the conversion of all those terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, etc in the North to normal human beings so that he could have a peaceful environment to campaign for votes when the time comes even though he believes in acquiring power through rigging which has become the hallmark of Nigeria’s electoral system. Nigerians are tired of spilling innocent blood.
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