Banditry and Boko Haram are becoming intractable, opening up almost the entire North to the possibility of massive revolt. The country should not fool itself to think otherwise. The question is how to defeat a group of disaffected people...
to be an exaggeration. Banditry, mostly limited to northern Nigeria, is a fairly recent menace, perhaps dating back only four or five years. The increasingly virulent Boko Haram, mostly limited to the Northeast, dates back more than 10 years. Now, both menaces reinforce each other, presenting themselves as the hammer and anvil between which Nigerians in those blighted regions are being pulverised.
In Borno and Yobe States, as in neighbouring north-eastern states, the Boko Haram menace has metamorphosed into full-blown insurgency. In Katisna, Zamfara and other north-western states, banditry is shaping up to become full-blown insurgency. If the government and the security services recognise this impending transformation from one level of criminality to another higher and more complex one, they have not shown matching urgency and preparedness in aborting the sanguinary change.
While the federal government has oscillated between strong-arm tactics and peaceful resolution of the Boko Haram crisis, the states have also advocated amnesty one day and military operations the following day. This is a clear manifestation of a lack of understanding of the issues involved in the Northeast insurgency and Northwest banditry. The problems call for a diligent connection of the dots, to decipher the puzzle, as it were.
Just a few days after the warning, about 100 innocent people were slaughtered in two states. Yet, massive military campaigns are underway, initiated by a government that still fails to read the crises accurately. Some sort of law enforcement may be required to keep the problems from worsening, and indeed the government cannot be dissuaded from sheathing its swords, but ultimately, the government must read the crises adroitly and sensibly apply the right panaceas.
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