New Telegraph

‘Bandits’ strike: After NDA, Yelwa Zangam, where next?

In the space of a few days, even the most ardent of government apologists must have been at a loss on how to explain the brazen attack on the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in Kaduna and the massacre of 35 people in Yelwa Zangam community in Jos North Local Government of Plateau State, especially considering that government has repeatedly claimed that things are not as bad as their detractors paint them concerning the security situation in the country. I wonder if the families of the military officers who lost their loved ones in the wee hours of Tuesday, in a facility which is not only supposed be impregnable, but also strike fear in the hearts of the enemies of the nation, or the 35 people slaughtered like animals in Plateau State will believe the government’s claims.

The latest attack on Yelwa Zangam is continuing a pattern which sadly has now become a recurring decimal in the country – mass slaughter of innocent men, women and children, by blood thirsty individuals whose barbaric actions leaves many wondering if they are actually human beings. It’s like they get their own highs from the more sadistic and brutal manner they kill their victims. Anyone who saw the pictures of the Yelwa Zangam attack will find it very difficult comprehending how human beings have the heart (or maybe they don’t have any) to burn men, women and children to death – wiping out entire families in the process.

The pictures are truly gory and yet they are now becoming an all too common theme in the so called ‘Giant of Africa’. It has become so bad that the news now is when there are no cases of murder or pillaging in any part of the country to report, and not the other way round. And yet, this present administration rode to power largely on account of its promises to improve the security situ-ation of the country, which before 2015 many believed was dire.

In hindsight I am sure that for millions of Nigerians if they could turn back the hands of time, would without thinking twice rather go back to what the security situation of the nation was then rather than what it is now! Back then it was largely confirmed to the North East, where the people living in that region only had Boko Haram insurgents to contend with.

But now, it has spread across the whole country, with the people now having to contend with multiple threats, ranging from kidnappers, abductors, insurgents, cult gangs and the most used word of them all – bandits! ‘Bandits’ have assumed a larger than life persona so much so that virtually any crime carried out now across the country is done by them. We now hardly hear of Boko Haram or Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP).

Have they simply melted away or have they truly been ‘technically defeated’ as the government wants us to believe. Or is it that they have metamorphosed into the bandits that are now terrorising the length and breadth of the country with so much impunity and without any fear of the recognised state security outfits like the police and the military? This now begs the question – was it actually ‘bandits’ that carried out the August 24 attack on the nation’s citadel of military training which was set up in 1960, and modelled after the worldfamous British Royal Military College at Sandhurst or Boko Haram/ISWAP fighters? Come to think of it, what will bandits, in the true sense of the word, be looking for at a military base, which by its very nature will be harbouring the same people that they would not want to meet – military personnel. Bandits like any ‘good businessman’ would weigh the venture they are going into and will only take the plunge if they are sure that the ‘returns’ will justify their effort.

Thus, it makes more sense for bandits to attack ‘soft’ targets like banks, where they are sure that there will be money or kidnapping from which they will get a ransom. In both cases, the risks are low when compared to entering a military facility. On the other hand, for Boko Haram/ ISWAP the motives are different. Of course, they will also pillage to raise money for their fighters and purchase weapons, but for them publicity is like oxygen to them and is usually a higher priority. And the NDA attack plays right into this narrative, as it has predictably dominated the news, both domestically and internationally, since it happened. Also according to reports, the way the attack was carried out further lends credence to the likelihood that it was not the work of our run of the mill ‘bandits’.

Not only did they wear army uniforms, but they also knew where to locate their targets, in this case senior military officers, moved in quickly gunned down two of them abducted a third before leaving without suffering any casualties – a textbook surgical operation, which shows that they must have spent some time in planning the raid. But while the operation has severely dented the prestige and honour of the Nigerian military, they can find some ‘consolation’ in the fact that such attacks have also been carried out in more advanced military nations of the world. However, unlike what happened in Kaduna most of these assaults have been insider attacks, carried out by US army personnel on fellow service men.

For instance, on November 5, 2009, 13 people were killed and more than 30 others wounded, nearly all of them unarmed soldiers, when a U.S. Army officer went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in central Texas. The deadly assault, carried out by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was the worst mass shooting at a U.S. military installation.

In the aftermath of the massacre, reviews by the Pentagon and a U.S. Senate panel found Hasan’s superiors had continued to promote him despite the fact that concerns had been raised over his behaviour, which suggested he had become a radical and potentially violent Islamic extremist. Among other things, Hasan stated publicly that America’s war on terrorism was really a war against Islam.

One only hopes that the investigation ordered by the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor into the NDA incident, which he called an “embarrassment” will come up with something like the US investigation did, so that nation and military will be spared such future humiliation from ‘bandits’. Unfortunately, while we await the outcome of the investigation, we should brace ourselves for the next atrocity to be committed by these so-called bandits.

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