•Why terrorism may not end soon
By Matilda Ikediobi
Founder of Community Development and Rights Advocacy Foundation, Steven Kefas, in this monitored interview, discusses the recent kidnapping in Kaduna State, warning that non-state actors may be using proceeds from ransom negotiations to create a private army. Excerpts:
So far, how do you characterise the insecurity in some parts of the country?
Unfortunately, we are still where we used to be, even though, to a large extent, one could confidently say that there has been some improvement in Kaduna State, for instance. Mass casualty attacks that we used to have two or three years ago have gone down. But in Kajuru and Chikun local governments, to be precise, and also Kaura, there are cases of kidnapping that seem to be on the rise.
In July, I toured some communities in Kajuru local government, and it was a shock to learn that these areas have no government presence, no road network, no telecommunication network, no electricity, and not even a school. The people living there are at the mercy of these terrorists. The terrorists just come in for fun, take women and children, and take them to the bush. Sometimes, they will release one person and say, go get ransom for us. These people have been impoverished.
They were actually poor before now, but they have been further impoverished by these terrorists. It is a very sad situation. What happened last Sunday made the headlines because of the high number. However, it is a daily occurrence in those areas.
Given the denial that followed the incident, what kind of relationship do the people have with security agencies and government?
The ongoing conversation in Washington and Abuja may have, to a large extent, influenced how we handle these security challenges. Of course, the Christian genocide narratives, the persecution narratives and then you have on a Sunday during church service, where 177 worshippers were whisked away from their churches, three different churches. You wouldn’t want that to be in the news. I think we need to be factual in this conversation.
Now, around 11 am on Sunday, I got the news because I have my network. Because of what I do, I have my network across the state and even different parts of North-Central. One of my sources reached out to me, saying there was a problem. I said, what happened? He said a friend just called him from Kurmin Wali and said people were abducted from their church during service. That was on Sunday. He said the number was over 100. I asked if he was sure and told him to let us verify. I made one or two calls and confirmed the incident. While I said we could not put the information out because it was too early, I started seeing the rumour on social media.
On Monday, the local government chairman came out to say it never happened. But that happened, and I am saying it with all sense of responsibility. The local government chairman had actually gone to the community after the incident, and somehow, they told the people that they must not tell the world that this happened, and it was under control. In the last 72 hours, I have been very vocal on social media, saying this incident happened, and if the police commissioner thinks I am lying, then he should order my arrest, because I was so sure. I was the first to post the list of the 177 people on Facebook.
It went viral, of course. But government, the police and the local government chairman kept denying and grandstanding that such happened. I went further and posted the pictures of the three churches affected, but they kept saying it never happened. Eventually, the conversation went out of control. They had to admit that this happened.
Even the media is getting tired of reporting what is happening in those areas. As I said, in July, I was in Kampani and Chibiya in the Kajuru local government area. The people there are living in fear. These terrorists come into the village and pack 10 to 20 people and take them to their camp. No form of resistance from anybody. It is their reality. I am happy that this conversation is on the front burner now; maybe that will help increase security presence in Kajuru. I can tell you that a lot of ungoverned communities there don’t have any presence of government: not security, not education, not healthcare, not roads, nothing. They are just there. And when you visit some of these villages, you could think you are in a 14th-century community.
Reports suggest that one or two persons may have escaped from that attack. Has that come to your notice? Do you have any information to that effect?
Absolutely. To the best of my knowledge, 11 people escaped. And that is why you see some saying 160. If you say 160, you are correct. 177 were the original people taken from the church. But, of course, because of the large number, sometimes one or two persons who are bold enough could find ways to escape. Indeed, 11 people, as of Tuesday morning, had escaped from captivity.
You said earlier that these communities have serious deficits in certain infrastructure. What is the nature of local government administration in these areas?
It is almost non-existent. Maru, for instance, is a ward in the Kajuru local government area. When you drive to Maru, there is no road network after that. In fact, the day I travelled there in July last year, for two hours, my wife could not reach me because there is no telecommunication network in Kampani village. Kampani is a village where some worshippers were killed in July. I think mid-July or thereabout, they were shot. When you get here, you are out of this world.
There is no road network. We managed a motorbike to get to that village. There is no school. There is no hospital, no healthcare. There is no electricity. Those people do not benefit from government in Kampani and Chibiya. The only thing they are asking for is to let us be alive. You didn’t give us a road. You didn’t give us electricity; we just want to be alive. But even that right to life has been denied.
It has been taken away from them. Some of them get killed in captivity when they cannot pay the ransom. Some of them got sick in captivity, and they ended up dying. These things don’t make the news, but that is their reality.
In your view and from what you know, what is the way forward for these very ungoverned spaces? What alternative is left for them? And what can government do to win them back?
I must say this with all sense of responsibility. The camp of these terrorists is known. When I went to Chibiya, the villagers could point to maybe two or three kilometres apart. I couldn’t see it because there were trees and all that. They told me that the camp was just right there. It is not a matter of having faceless terrorists who are not known, whose locations are not known.
No, that’s not the issue. The issue is the political will, and that is what is lacking. In the North-West and in the North-East, you have intense security operations going on. Bombardment, aerial bombardment and all that. But when you come to the North-Central and part of southern Kaduna, you discover you don’t get to see this kind of military bombardment. The police spokesman, Benjamin Hundeyin, said the police had deployed a helicopter around that area. But it goes beyond just deploying helicopters. What is the helicopter actually doing? For the community that was attacked on Sunday, in the last five years, they told me that they used to feed the terrorists.
Whenever the terrorists are coming from an operation, maybe they have kidnapped people from other communities, they pass through this Kurmin Wali. Kurmin Wali has seen this terrorism for a long, long time. In fact, they got so used to them that they never believed that they would also be victims. Because the community is on the path where people pass through to pay ransom. So, it has become like a business. It has become the new normal for them. I think government must be sincere because denying that such an incident ever happened puts a form of distrust in the minds of the citizens. I think the citizens should be able to trust their government. Nobody is saying it is government’s fault.
Of course, the primary responsibility of government is the protection of life and property, but when things have gone beyond what government could do, obviously, what we are seeing is that the Nigerian government is not able to tackle this insecurity. And the chairman, I think, is the closest leader to the people. I expected him to show empathy, not to try to say it never happened. Denying the suffering of your citizens is the highest form of irresponsibility, I must say.
There have been different reasons given for these attacks, killings and kidnappings. First, there are reports of targeted attacks against Christians, particularly. There is the trying to grab people’s lands, chase them out of their ancestral homes and take over, rename it and own it. There is a third one, which is pure economics. They are kidnapped for ransom. Some even believe there is government connivance. From what you know, what is it for you?
The three are intertwined. In July, a very close friend of mine spent four months in captivity. He was released in early October last year. When he was released, he told me so many things. One of them was that the very day they come to pay ransom, that same day you have suppliers of arms who have brought arms into the camp, and then the ransom will be used to pay them for the arms. So, it means that the kidnapping that is going on is to raise funds to acquire more arms.
So it means there is no end in sight. It means this criminality, this terrorism, is not going to end anytime soon. Because I was wondering what these terrorists do with the money. They don’t look good. They don’t build houses. They don’t have cars. But he answered my question when he was released. I debriefed him for three hours. And he told me that any day there is a ransom payment at that camp, somebody is bringing arms to supply to the terrorists.
Does that mean that they are building their own army?
Obviously, that is what it means because in August last year, I had reported that about three-trailer loads of Lakurawa fighters came in from the Sahel, from Niger to Sokoto State. Nobody did anything about it. So these fighters keep coming in, or these terrorists keep coming in, whether from Mali, whether from Niger, and then you already have a system where funds are acquired through ransom payment. They use it to acquire more arms.
We don’t know what the future holds, because I believe that they are building a stronger network, and that is why it is spreading. You could see Kwara State and Kogi State were not in this conversation, but now you have such activities going on there. It is a complex issue that government is not really handling properly. And then talking about whether it’s targeted, I believe it’s also targeted. How do you explain that on a Sunday, 177 people were taken away from their churches? In the same Kajuru, in July last year, three people were killed during an attack. They were in the church. So how do you explain it? The issue of land grabbing is true. There are communities, over 40 communities, the last time I counted, in the Kajuru local government area that have been displaced, some of them occupied by these terrorists.
I think we have lied to ourselves for so long, and if we must get it right, then government must first and foremost acknowledge what the problem is, saying it is not genocide, it is not persecution. If 20 people are killed for no reason, to me, it’s genocide. In fact, if one man is killed for no reason, I think it’s a big crime against humanity, not to talk of 20, not to talk of 50.
These things are happening not just in Kaduna State. I was in Yelwata five times after the attack. Yelwata is now a shadow of itself. Nothing has been done yet. 258 people, I have the names, were killed in Yelwata. But the argument you hear from government is that there were 60 people or 100 people. I mean, that should not even be the conversation. The conversation should be that people are being killed, people are being abducted. What do we do to stop it? I think it goes beyond visiting this community.
It is good to visit the community to show empathy. At least that gives the community some sense of fulfilment that our government is with us. But I think government must go beyond that. This policy of appeasement, paying these terrorists, will not help anybody, because I also have on record that the terrorists most times collect these funds from government and acquire more arms. As far as the terrorists are concerned, their act is to just buy arms. They are not ready to build houses with the money they are getting. They just keep acquiring arms. The question is, why are they acquiring these arms? That is a question government should provide answers to.
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