By Ben Adoga, Abuja and Israel Joel
Barely one day after Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal called for a declaration of a state of emergency on insecurity to enable security operatives to access to clear bandits’ enclaves and other hideouts in the country, an African-focused research firm, SBM Intel, has disclosed that no fewer than 3,686 non-state actors have been killed in the last 12 months.
The firm listed the non-state actors to include Boko Haram fighters and members of the Indigenous People of Biafra.
Tambuwal had while receiving a delegation of the Northwest States Governor’s Forum on Wednesday led by Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State over the killing of 23 travellers in Sokoto State by bandits, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to declare the state of emergency to give security operatives additional operational laws to ensure maximum success in their operations.
A report released yesterday titled, ‘Nigeria at war: Combatant casualties Q4 2020 to Q3 2021’, disclosed that a total of 985 security agents including police officers, soldiers, customs officials, amongst others, were killed between October 2020 and September 2021.
This came just as the Secretary for Education in the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Sani El-Katuzu, said insecurity has become a major threat in schools in Abuja.
Speaking on the killing of non-state actors and security operatives, a Security Analyst at SBM Intel, Confidence Owamninaemi, said the report on the killings was based on several gathering tools including the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria security tracker, as well as SBM’s own internal database of security incidents around the country.
The firm gave a breakdown of the 985 security officers killed in the period under review as 642 military officers, 322 police officers, 11 officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, five Customs officials, two DSS operatives, two Immigrations officers, and an officer with the Federal Road Safety Corps.
53 firms gets NCDMD $300m loan for local content development
They also gave the breakdown of the 3,686 total non-state actors killed as 1,989 bandits, 973 Boko Haram members, 290 cultists, 129 vigilantes, 100 IPOB members, 88 kidnappers, nine militants, and nine smugglers.
The report read in part, “The Uppsala Conflict Data Programme defines war as a state-based conflict that reaches at least 1,000 battle-related deaths in a specific calendar year.
“The most known and influential definition was developed by David Singer and Melvin Small in the framework of the ‘Correlates of War (COW)’ project at Michigan University which has assembled statistical data on wars around the world since 1816.
“It also defines war as any violent conflict with at least 1,000 killed combatants in a year. Both definitions exclude genocides and sporadic massacres and make efforts to include only casualties that belong to organised parties the violence.
“With these in mind, we have looked at SBM’s database of violent deaths in Nigeria in the period of Q4 2020 to Q3 2021. We excluded violent civilian deaths, as well as those of belligerents that could be, by whatever definition, classified as non-insurgent or non-terrorist.
“This filtering has given us a total of 966 soldiers and policemen killed in the period, while 3071 people belonging to either Boko Haram, IPOB, or various militant and bandit groups have been killed in that period. The offshoot of this is that we can only say that Nigeria is at war.”
•Public, private school under threat, says Abuja Edu Sec
Secretary for Education in the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Sani El- Katuzu, also lamented the threat posed by insecurity to schools even when any student was yet to fall victim in Abuja.
He said though no child has been kidnapped in any FCT school, both public and private, insecurity has been identified as a major challenge in FCT schools.
El- Katuzu, who raised the alarm during this year’s media luncheon in Abuja on Wednesday, noted that general insecurity was a major challenge to FCT schools among others.
He stressed that the general insecurity in Northern Nigeria was taking a toll on schools in the FCT as authorities have been working round the clock to avert any incident in the nation’s capital.
Okorodudu sends SOS to Sports Minister
He observed that some boarding facilities in the FCT lack comprehensive perimeter fence while those with perimeter fence can hardly deter bandit activities.
Recall that recently school children were kidnapped in neighbouring Niger State, while in Kaduna, abduction of school children had become a major source of concern
Since the Boko Haram insurgency had peaked in the kidnapping of school children for ransom, many schools in Nigeria, especially Northern Nigeria have faced severe apprehension across the country.
Another challenge, the secretary explained is the continuous influx of people into FCT without a corresponding increase in the facilities available in the schools.
He frowned on the massive encroachment on school lands by private developers and inadequate teaching and technical staff.
El- Katuzu said there was a need to focus attention on the challenge to find an early solution to the threat.
He said public school sites were captured in the Abuja Master Plan, adding that the city was designed for six million residents, but due to the massive influx of residents from other states, the need to establish more public schools has become imperative.
He said the difficulty in acquiring lands for establishing new schools is a major concern.
Some of the locations that schools would have been established are occupied by illegal developers while new settlements require school facilities but are yet to be captured in the Abuja Master Plan.
Despite these challenges, he said FCT schools were blazing the trail in the education sector.
•Farmers abandon farmlands for urban areas, idle in cities –Plateau monarch
Also, the Emir of Wase, HRH Muhammad Haruna, yesterday said the country was at the risk of having a food crisis because insecurity has driven many farmers from their farms into the city where they remain idle.
He further raised the alarm that bandits have taken over 50 per cent of the landmass in the Wase Local Government Area of Plateau State.
He said the people could no longer go to the farm, adding that those that manage to farm sell out about 70% of their produce before the next farming season.
The monarch said this in Jos yesterday while speaking during a colloquium and fundraising organised by the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Plateau State Council with the theme: “Tackling food crisis in Nigeria through robust research for sustainable development.”
He said, “I am a farmer, and the majority of the people in my domain are farmers. Two things I want to mention is the issue of security.
“A lot of us leave the villages to the city to look for greener pastures because we cannot afford to go to our farms. This is not because we are lazy to be given fish. If the atmosphere is conducive for us to work on our farms, the number of people in the city will reduce because they will go back to the villages.
“We want to farm because of the vast land we have which God has blessed us with. There is nothing you cannot farm in Wase. Unfortunately, 50 per cent of the landmass has been taken over by terrorists. Our people cannot go to the farm.
“This week a very ugly incident happened in one of the villages in Wase and for the first time, governments of the federal, state, and local took the right action by deploying armed soldiers and police to go and flush out all these people.
Married Janemena aborted for Kpokpogri, Tonto Dikeh alleges as hostilities resume
“I want to appreciate them for doing the job we have been appealing for years. We are making a special appeal that this should continue so that next year, we will be able to go to the farm. Second, about 70 per cent of food that is produced in Plateau State is sold out before the next planting season. Some people have taken responsibility, they will give you fertilizer and everything you require to farm but the disadvantage is that they take 70 per cent of what you produce.
“We are in December, maize in Wase is N28, 000 per bag, imagine by April, how much it will cost. That is the food that is considered the poor man’s food. The one considered the rich man food, rice is N26, 000 or N27, 000. The kind of problem we are likely to have in Plateau and by extension, Nigeria, if people are hungry during the harvest period, imagine the situation that will be the next few months.”
Guest Speaker at the event, Prof. Dakas Dakas (SAN), called on the academics, governments, and industries to work in synergy to tackle the challenges associated with food insecurity for sustainable development.
•China offers to assist Nigerian military
Meanwhile, China has offered to send a high-level delegation of criminal investigation experts to meet with Nigerian security agencies over insecurity.
Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Cui Jianchun disclosed this yesterday in Abuja while speaking to journalists on the side-line of the October 1, China-Nigeria friendship award to students of the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria.
Cui said the move by China was part of its support to tackling the insecurity bedevilling Nigeria, disclosing that the security experts were expected to arrive in Nigeria soon.
He said, “China’s central government is concerned about the security situation in Nigeria and the Chinese Nationals in Nigeria.
Okorodudu sends SOS to Sports Minister
“We are working hard on how we can get support from China. I think that it concerns every Nigerian and I believe this is not only about the Nigerian people and government but also, we need international support.
“So now the Central government decided to send a High-Level delegation from the criminal investigation experts with real experience.
“They come to Nigeria and get to talk to the people, the government, how can they find a way to work together to overcome the challenge they are facing,” Cui said.
Vice-Chancellor, of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, Prof. Kabiru Bala, thanked the Chinese government for its support and the Nigerian government for its efforts in curbing insecurity.
Bala said that the University Campus has been secured to a large extent following the interventions of the government after the institution requested reinforced security.
