- Nigeria’s rating as the 3rd most terrorized country is worrisome
At the moment, there appears to be a precarious balance between the Nigerian state and insurgent forces as regards the war against terrorism in the country. The 2018 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) ranks Nigeria as the 3rd most terrorized nation on earth coming after countries like Iraq and Afghanistan plagued by war. Nigeria has indeed maintained this 3rd place terrorism ranking since 2015 despite there being a reported drop in the number of deaths caused by Boko Haram between 2015 and 2018.
It is estimated that there were 63%, 34% and 16% drop in terror-related deaths in the country in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively. Describing the reduction in deaths in Nigeria and Iraq as “the most dramatic”, the GTI attributes the improvement in Nigeria to “the effectiveness of the counterinsurgency operations undertaken in Nigeria and its neighbours, Cameroon, Niger and Chad”.
True, the Boko Haram insurgent group no longer occupies any part of Nigerian territory in the North East as it used to do and its offensive edge has been substantially blunted. Yet, it continues to demonstrate a disturbing ability to launch fatal attacks against Nigerian military bases with at least 17 attempts to overrun army bases in that area made between July and now.
For the better part of 2018, the centre of gravity of terrorism in Nigeria appears to have shifted to the Middle Belt with the activities of alleged herdsmen claiming lives on a large scale thus negating the effect of the decline in Boko Haram killings. The GTI estimates that no less than 1,700 lives were violently snuffed out through herders-farmers clashes between January and September 2018.
On its part, the International Criminal Court (ICC) states in its 2018 annual report that over 1,300 people were killed and 300,000 displaced as a result of clashes between herders and farmers from January to June this year in Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, Adamawa and Taraba states. While still studying whether the criminal atrocities that caused these deaths falls within its jurisdiction, the ICC notes importantly that “Some of the attacks on civilians were allegedly committed by criminal gangs involved in cattle-rustling that were subsequently blamed on herders”.
It is noteworthy that attacks on farmers and their communities by alleged herdsmen, which used to be a daily affair, have almost completely abated in recent months. This should not deter the security agencies from conducting thorough investigations to get to the root of the problem especially because of the insinuations that the mayhem was the handiwork of still unidentified armed gangs masquerading as herdsmen. Until they (killers and bandits) are unmasked, brought to justice and disabled, such nebulous groups remain grave security risks.
The security authorities should be worried that the vacuum created by the cessation of herdsmen-farmers clashes has been filled by a rise in armed robbery, kidnapping, ritual killings and sundry other crimes that are also prevalent across the country. This reinforces the urgent need not only to review the current template used to fight terrorism in the country but to also fundamentally rework the existing security architecture to make it more flexible and responsive to constantly and rapidly changing scenarios.
It is instructive that Anglican bishops last week called on the federal government to declare alleged killer herdsmen as terrorists despite the noticeable restoration of normalcy in affected areas. The clerics alleged that perpetrators of these criminal acts were given a free hand to operate by those with a responsibility to uphold the law.
While this kind of insinuation may not necessarily be true, government has a duty to help rebuild fractured trust among aggrieved groups as well as restore confidence in its ability and readiness to enforce justice and adherence to the rule of law among the citizenry without discrimination.
