BY PATRICK MGBODO
INSECURITY has become a very lucrative venture in Nigeria. Unlike other businesses, it requires very cheap capital to start up; guts, guns and connections-but its return on investment (ROI) obliterates the risk of failure, especially when we consider a major factor that makes this endeavour highly rewarding, as it were.
It is safe to assume that insecurity, particularly banditry and its younger relative, kidnapping, has secured some form of insurance to protect it from injuries, loss of property or other occasional occupational hazards. This cover, while not negotiated with the regular insurance broker, is powered by its supposed adversary.
Regrettably, the government, purportedly the chief antagonist of insecurity, having been so mandated through the Constitution and the ballot to protect life and property and guarantee the welfare of citizens, is now seen to insure bandits and terrorists in the name of amnesty.
This malignant episode manifested recently when the Katsina State Government was caught in the very act of trying to release 70 bandits. Expectedly, the action was met with public outrage after a letter seeking judicial intervention to facilitate the release of the suspects facing criminal prosecution leaked.
In its defence, Katsina State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Nasir Muazu, said the action was intended to consolidate a peace deal reached between affected communities and what he described as “repentant bandits” across several local government areas in Katsina.
Citing Nigeria’s civil war and past negotiations with Boko Haram, the commissioner argued that releasing detainees as part of peace negotiations was not unprecedented. According to him, “The issue is not whether an offence was committed or not, but ensuring peace,” he said, adding that prisoner exchange “is not a new thing in the history of war and peace.”
Since Muazu and his proponents have argued that Nigeria is at war, he should, as a civilian, dutifully leave the warfront and let the soldiers do their work. Save for the very irritating intrusion of these saboteurs, we would have long won the war against banditry. Unfortunately, we are only moving one step forward and five steps backwards in this fight because, not only is the enemy we fight within, he is insured.
Adding salt to injury, this reprehensible transaction, conceived in secrecy, transpired around the period when we just celebrated our fallen heroes. For nearly three decades, Nigeria has been at war with terrorism and has lost thousands of men, fathers, sons, husbands, brothers, uncles, and lovers to this ravaging menace.
Yet, the least we can do to honour their memories is to release the very bandits they sacrificed their lives for to continue terrorising the ones whom they died protecting. Are we really laying wreaths on their graves or spitting on them?
Where is the justice for the wives, children, mothers and sisters of those who lost their lives fighting to ensure that we sleep? Is it not enough that they have lost their breadwinners, and should be compensated with the arrest and imprisonment of these bandits?
In this supposed peace deal, which requires a swap with criminals to be consummated, one is tempted to ask, who are those at the negotiation table? This is because, the victim cannot vote for the freedom of his captor, except if the entire communities in Katsina State and other bandit-infested regions are now suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.
Again, these bandits are not repentant as they would want us to believe. What are the determinants to verify their repentance? In the first instance, it takes a great deal of fanaticism to take up arms and mow down entire communities, rape women and kidnap children.
While not ruling out the possibility of repentance, it is best that these brigands, those caught, serve as deterrents to others. Otherwise, we can only imagine the jubilations in their camps when 70 of their members return, as well as the next scale of their banditry.
Finally, releasing bandits or granting them amnesty of any kind does not augur well for Nigeria’s reputation on the international scene. While other countries are deploying technology to smoke out cancerous elements from their midst, how would they perceive countries like Nigeria, which are engaged in an endless recycling of criminals? A pity!
Lest I forget, our prisons are congested with offenders of misdemeanour, but who would negotiate their release? A man is locked up simply because he owes his neighbour, but another man is on the verge of being released after killing his neighbour. In Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s voice, ‘’Show me the law’’.
But since the government has considered insurance for bandits very important. It would not be out of place to ask that these bandits be captured in the new tax reforms so that they can also remit. After all, they are making serious income from their very lucrative business. And then, with the tax accrued from the bandits, the government will procure arms in its determined fight against insecurity.
One day, a motion for the establishment of a National Banditry Insurance Corporation (NBIC) or Bandits Pension Bureau will be moved on the floor of the House in the name of ensuring peace in our communities. May that day never come.
