Bandits’ ‘meat’ sold in the South?

•Inside story of how kingpins, thousands of followers ‘relocated’ from N/West to Kwara, ‘close to the market for the disposal of the proceeds of their criminal activities (rustled cattle) which is southern Nigeria’

•Top security source: Some people don’t know if you are in Lagos you are eating stolen meat’

•’They won’t have their way, the siege will be over. We killed over 200 in the last few weeks’

… says 10, 000 well-trained forest guards being deployed

By Nnamdi Ojiego

For several weeks now, security forces have been battling bandits who apparently invaded Kwara State from the North-West, where they had been dislodged by the superior firepower of the military.

Reports say many local governments in the state are under siege as the bandits engage in the kidnapping of locals, killing those whose families cannot pay ransom money.

Multiple security sources revealed to Sunday Vanguard last week why Kwara became an attractive choice for the bandits to relocate after fleeing the North-West, especially Kaduna, where measures taken by the state government forced them to flee.

The sources cited the attraction to thick forests in Kwara, which provide safe hideouts for them, even as the state is closer to southern Nigeria, “the market for the disposal of the proceeds of their criminal activities (rustled cattle)”.

“Some people don’t know if you are in Lagos you are eating stolen meat”, one of the sources added in reference to the sale of the cattle rustled by the bandits in Lagos among other southern states.
Lagos is the largest consumer of cows in the country.

According to a report quoting a top government official, about 10, 000 cows are consumed in the state every day.

Cattle-rustling in the North-West is commonplace although there are no statistics available to Sunday Vanguard to determine the extent of the widespread.

But a report quoting the President of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), Alhaji Baba Othman Ngelzarma, said 50, 000 people and four million herds of cattle had been lost to the violence in the North.

Ngelzarma did not disclose the period covered by the losses.

“But we are following them in Kwara. We are fighting. It probably will take a little longer to overcome them but the siege will definitely be over”, one top security source said.

According to him, no fewer than 10, 000 well-trained forest guards are being deployed shortly to confront criminals, including bandits, as part of the efforts to tackle insecurity across Nigeria.

He listed Bastuje and Soja among the bandit kingpins who relocated from Kaduna to Kwara and Kogi.
“There are thousands of them who moved in there, Kogi and Kwara”, the source said.

“Those who were under fire in the North-West, particularly Kaduna and so on, moved to Kwara because Kwara is a virgin land for them, it has a huge forest.

“And it is also very close to the market for the disposal of the proceeds of their criminal activities which is southern Nigeria. Some people don’t know if you are in Lagos you are eating stolen meat.

“Kaduna adopted some measures which worked, the situation marginalized the very bad ones and so they moved out.

“The bad ones like Bastuje, like Soja, all of them who were hitherto there (Kaduna)
“They don’t give a damn. They go to where they are comfortable. But we are following them, they will not survive.

“We will not allow them to have their way. We are killing them.

“In the last few weeks, we killed over 200 of them in Kwara. When they came, they were in their thousands”.

Road

Narrating how the bandits relocated from the North-West, he stated: “They didn’t get there by road, they passed through the bush. They would leave Katsina, for example, go through Kebbi, get to Niger and go down to Niger. The only problem they have is where they have to pass through water or river”.

Another source said the administration inherited a dead country as far as security is concerned, saying about 23 states had serious kidnapping problem when it took over but only five, including Kwara, are now battling the problem.

He listed the four other states as Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina and Kogi.

Poor management

Saying the insecurity problem in the country could be partly traced to the poor management of the situation by some state governments, the source said: “But we still have the problem lingering in Katsina and Zamfara partly because of the locals in the states.

“This problem is a state problem, it is not a Federal Government problem. Federal Government is not in the states. Federal Government is not in local governments. “The problem arose because of some state governments’ poor management of the situation in their respective states.

“And there is no way the Federal Government can solve the problem without them because we (Federal Government) are not there.

“State governments are part of the communities. And this is a crisis at the community level: fighting, disagreement on local issues.

“Two states, we were able to get their cooperation. Recently Katsina is coming on board. Hopefully, Zamfara will also cue in. “The Federal Government is too far away from there.

“Many of the states with insecurity are in the North-East but we have literally kidnapping and banditry there.

“We are not saying it will be completely over, no country can do that. We know our challenges, we know the poverty level.

“There is no state in Nigeria that is getting less than N20 billion every month. This is the result of increase in revenue from subsidy withdrawal.

“And we tried to say that local governments should get their funds directly. If a state government wants to do good governance, that is primarily its responsibility. And insecurity will be over. Many of the things are their responsibility and now they have the funds.

Politics of insecurity

“But it can go down to the level that is tolerable. It is work in progress. And the situation is not that bad as some people portray it. Some people use it politically and they lie a lot.

“One little boy can sit somewhere in Kaura Namoda or Shinkafi and send a message that “40 people have just been killed” and you may get there to find that a single person has been killed. There are so many instances like this.

“The fact that you can move everywhere now across the country shows that the security situation has improved.

“Before, you dared not travel from Abuja to Lokoja or Nasarawa or to Minna. But there is no part of the country today that you cannot drive through.

“Even Zamfara, even Sokoto, it shows you what government, particularly the Federal Government, is doing. Even in Borno, Boko Haram is ongoing but it has been downgraded. It is an extremely success story”.

The Sahel connection

Speaking on link between insecurity in Nigeria and the crisis in the Sahel region, he stated: “Then we woke up to these bad people moving in from the Sahel, they have destroyed all the countries on top of us in Nigeria.

“Whether it is Sudan or Libya, Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, they are all gone. They don’t have anything they call democracy. “Not long ago they were all democratic nations, this problem destroyed them, we are the only one standing.

“So the problem is huge and it is not our doing. We just found ourselves in the middle of it. But people are working to contain it and we are doing very well at it”.

‘We are arresting terrorist leaders’

Elaborating on the success against insecurity, the source added: “The country generally is not doing badly. The economy is picking up and we are constantly following every step, whenever there is the need to correct a mistake, we do.

“Many of the things we are doing today have long term maturity timelines.

“In the Niger-Delta, we are beginning to see reconciliation. For the first time we are beginning to see that reflecting in reinvestment in the region.

“Investments are coming back. Even simple things like this Ogoni thing, some people may look at it as something not important, but it is an issue that has lingered since 1991.

“There have been many governments since then. It is only now that we have seen results. In the South-East we are working so hard to see the possibility of how we can regain normalcy. We have done fairly well. “And the terrorists, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, we are arresting the leaders: Mahmuda, Abubara, this and that. Mohammed Yusuf’s son, we worked with Chad to arrest him.

“For the first time in the history of Nigeria this is happening. We are going to the fundamentals. We are not there yet to achieve all our goals but we are on track and it is work in progress.

“The people who make the most sacrifice today are in government. We bury our soldiers fighting terrorists every single day. “It is painful thing when a person chooses to die for his country and you go and bury him”.

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