By Greg Odogwu
If you have ever made a road trip from Abuja to Niger State, driving through the Suleja-Lambata-Lapai-Agaie-Bida route, there are two things you would have noticed. The first is that the roads are terribly bad. The second is the awful heavy traffic of mostly tankers, trailers and articulated vehicles. If you are unlucky to be on the road on some logjam days, you would become sandwiched between these heavy automobiles, jammed back to back and your hope of reaching your destination would be put in the hands of God.
But it has not always been like this. The major reason there is now heavy vehicular movement on this route is that these tankers are avoiding the notorious Birnin-Gwari road, which is presently controlled by terrorists. Being one of the major connecting road networks between the Northern and Southern parts of the country, tankers and trailers used to ferry their wares through Jebba-Mokwa-Bokano-Tegina-Kagara connecting Birnin-Gwari/Kaduna road. However, with the takeover of this route by kidnappers and terrorists, the drivers have all resorted to the Suleja-Bida route. The environmental impact of this development may not be noticeable for now but, given it a few years, we shall become inundated by eco-traumas that would have far-reaching reverberations.
This is why we must start now to interrogate some national problems that we are faced with before they get out of hand. It is no longer news that most parts of Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State are occupied by terrorists who exercise full authority over the locals. Indeed, last month, the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, reportedly wrote the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), stating that the terrorists controlling the Birnin-Gwari territory have established and are running a “parallel government” in his state.
It all started 10 years ago, when Ansaru terrorists, a faction that broke off from Boko Haram, stormed Birnin-Gwari main town, the headquarters of the LGA, on November 17, 2012. They dislodged the Divisional Police Office and carted away its arms and ammunition. They attacked the two banks in the area and commandeered the money in the vaults. From that day onwards, the terrorists began to expand.
The Kaduna State government is aware of this incursion and the progressive litany of mayhem unleashed on its citizens. At the beginning of the administration of Governor El-Rufai, precisely on May 29, 2015, while swearing-in ceremonies were ongoing in Kaduna, the terrorists stormed Layin Lasan community and Tabanni district and killed three people during Jumaat prayers and also went away with many cattle, while looting many shops. Their base was in Kuduru forest, until 2018 when a police helicopter and gunship raided the headquarters with controversial collateral damage to civilian quarters.
According to local authorities, when the police succeeded in destroying one of the biggest camps of the Ansaru, the terrorists changed their tactics. They left the forest and decided to go into towns and villages to mix with society. They told the locals that they were there to propagate Islam and also to give them protection against bandits. Initially, the people believed they were evangelists and some of them took their children to the terrorists to learn Islamic teachings. Thereafter, terrorists that were dislodged from the North-East came into Birnin-Gwari and they became entrenched.
A community leader in Birnin-Gwari emirate and former Managing Director of the Kaduna State Media Corporation, Alhaji Zubairu Idris Abdurauf (Dan Masanin Birnin-Gwari), painted a poignant picture of the situation: “When political parties were to hold primaries, the Ansaru people gave orders, saying ‘we are in charge. Nobody should partake in the activity. Nobody should do anything without our permission”. Because of what happened before, giving them protection against the bandits and also sometimes during festivities they distributed food items with cash to all the people, pretending to be nice, the villages do not have any option but to take orders. They also told them to revolt against any government machinery.”
In addition to the environmental impact, there are a couple of other reasons why we should worry about what is going on in Birnin-Gwari. First is that it would become an ungoverned space that would pose a strategic threat to the nation’s seat of government. As terrorists consolidate their grip and make it a permanent operational base, it would technically and officially, signal the shift of power from Sambisa, which was a symbol of insurgency in the North-East, to the North-Central. This is also considering that the Ansaru broke away from Boko Haram, the lord of Sambisa. Birnin-Gwari is a more dangerous location because it straddles the North-Central and North-West Nigeria, and would become a tactical rallying point should all insurgents decide to form one command to launch out against government forces.
Lest we forget, El-Rufai wrote in his leaked July memo to Buhari: “Observed movement patterns and intercepted communications of migrating terrorists have shown a clear interest in setting up a base, with the stretches of forest area between Kaduna and Niger States strongly considered…. The insurgents enacted a law in the District banning all forms of political activity or campaign ahead of the 2023 elections, especially in Madobiya and Kazage villages.”
Secondly, Birnin-Gwari has the potential of becoming the cultural base of extreme fundamentalism in Nigeria. The Ansaru are known to have an extremist ideological posture against democracy and secular authorities. They have organised governance, justice and revenue mobilisation systems in their new domain. They tax the people and organise farms and hire villagers to work for them. It is instructive to note that they are very different from your everyday bandit, who is known to raid for monetary ends. Therefore, as the political activities towards the 2023 general elections get underway, the Ansaru poses a threat to the citizens’ participation.
Thirdly, Birnin-Gwari is a symbol of a failed government. Kaduna is in the backyard of Abuja and the relinquishing of its democratic authority to terrorists signposts a fundamental psychological defeat to this present regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). Recently, there was a report that some of the terrorist warlords, who occupied large spaces of arable land in Birnin-Gwari, have gone into big-time commercial farming, employing the locals. The hapless farmers said it was better to serve as labourers to the Ansaru than to be kidnapped and killed by the same terrorists who have taken over their communities.
A recent statement by the Chairman, Birnin-Gwari Emirate Progressive Union, Ishaq Usman Kasai, said the helpless locals had to accept the offer as labourers to the terrorists because it was part of negotiating conditions to also allow the locals to access their own farms without molestation from the terrorists.
The BEPU statement read in part, “The armed bandits have been contacting these communities for negotiations for about three years ago but did not accept until all hopes for help from the government were lost… This is despite several calls by the people to the government to come to their help. These communities are presently being governed by armed bandits. The armed bandits are seen going round, freely wielding different types of rifles unchallenged. In fact, the non-presence of democratic government in the area is undoubtable. It is therefore based on this situation that the helpless locals were left with no other option than to accept the offer by the bandits for negotiation on access to farmlands.”