A notorious bandit leader, Ado Aleru, during a peace dialogue session recently held in Danmusa Local Government Area of Katsina State, issued a chilling warning to Nigerian authorities and society, stating that continued labelling of his group as “terrorists” will only sustain the violence ravaging communities in the North-West. Katsina stakeholders were in attendance where he declared: “As long as we are still being called terrorists, then do not expect us to stop behaving like terrorists.”
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Aleru, who was wanted by security agencies, spoke on behalf of his group and defended the actions of his armed group claiming that many young men were driven into banditry by years of neglect, injustice, and unresolved grievances. He said their decision to take up arms was not born out of hatred but survival. He lamented that “Our parents are not happy with what we are doing, and even we do not truly want this life in our hearts, we would prefer a return to the way things were, where there was mutual respect between farmers and herders, and security personnel stuck to their duties without bias.” He stressed that peace could only be achieved if government authorities and the public stopped stigmatising them, adding that mutual respect and honest engagement were the keys to restoring trust. Aleru called for genuine reconciliation and reintegration, insisting that derogatory labels only deepen mistrust and hostility.
The dialogue session in Danmusa is part of ongoing peace-building initiatives between security agencies, local authorities, and armed groups in an effort to curb persistent violence in the region. Traditional rulers, community leaders, and government officials are said to be intensifying efforts to secure lasting peace in the North-West, a region long plagued by deadly clashes between armed groups and security forces.
As a lawyer, I am aware that Aleru would not win the argument not to be called a terrorist because this is the definition of what he is doing if he continues doing same things over again. In law, the reason you adduce for indulging in a crime is irrelevant in determining your guilt. What is relevant is whether you intended to commit the act. Indeed your reason may even indict you the more, as more often than not, it supplies the evidence of intent.
However, the observation of Aleru may be germane to the solution of terrorism in Nigeria. It’s telling that Aleru did not blame ethnicity or religion as the root cause of terrorism. He blamed “years of neglect, injustice, and unresolved grievances.” He confirmed that “survival” was instrumental to their decision to take up arms not “hatred”. The summary of this submission is that what is going on in Nigeria today is pure criminality borne out of human instinct for survival, not religious or ethnic communal clashes.
This puts the blame of the whole cause of terrorism in Nigeria to the incompetence and corruption of the government in power. It doesn’t even appear that Tinubu’s government understands the causes of terrorism in Nigeria as it incompetently referred to Benue terrorists attacks as communal clashes. Assuming without conceding that it is even a communal clash, whose duty is it to quell the clash? Conflicts and quarrels are inevitable in any human existence, and it’s the duty of government to ensure that the conflicts are resolved amicably by every legitimate means available. President Tinubu, by asking the Benue people to go and settle their communal clash without state police is like telling a child to arrest a hungry wounded lion with his bare hands.
The “ceremonial” visit of Tinubu to Benue at least achieved one thing – the exposition of the incompetence and corruption of all the parties in the Benue saga. Tinubu asked his Inspector-General of Police, “how come no arrests have been made?” Summarily, any law enforcement agency that could not arrest culprits in a place where more than 500 persons where gruesomely murdered after several days is not only incompetent but also complicit. Gen Abacha was very clear that any insurgency that lasts more than 24 hours without being taken out has the support of the government in power.
Benue crisis has lasted for years without solutions. I dare say that it’s becoming like a state policy to perpetuate the crisis unnecessarily. Aleru was correct that Benue crisis is festering because of “years of neglect, injustice, and unresolved grievances.” The Fulani and the Tiv have been having unresolved grievances for years in Benue. Farmers, herders have been having grievances before we were born. These grievances are not the reason for the massacres because they are inevitable. It’s the long years of neglecting these grievances, and the injustice meted out to either side, depending on which government is in power, that have pushed a lot of the citizens to choose the way of terrorism as a means of survival. Don’t forget that indigenous Nigerians who have the lower hand in the fight will solicit the help of their foreign relatives in the fight. These foreigners would get their own rewards by looting everything in sight and destroying every obstacle on their way. As usual Nigeria will continue to degenerate into anarchy.
The Tor Tiv summarised it this way: “Mr President, it is not herders, farmers clashes, it is not communal clashes, it is not reprisal attack. It is this misinformation that has led to suggestions such as, remain tolerant, negotiate for peace, learn to live with your neighbours. What we are dealing with here in Benue State is a calculated, well-planned and full-scale genocidal invasion and land grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits. This has been on for decades and it’s worsening every year.”
Let us be clear, Tinubu didn’t pay any condolence visit to the bereaved families in Benue State. He went on a ceremonial tour to the government house of Benue State in Makurdi, meant to entertain the political elite of Benue State. No terrorist attacks took place in Makurdi. Condolence visit is not meant for the wounded in hospital in Makurdi, it’s meant for the dead in Yelewata in Benue. It’s pathetic that Tinubu gave the excuse of rain and bad roads to abort his condolence trip to Yelewata, while innocent children were brought out in the same rain and bad roads to wave to Tinubu and his endless convoy. The children wore school uniform on a public holiday to stand in the rain without umbrellas to wave to an insensitive President who stayed inside a bulletproof Cadillac to wave to them. This is that neglect and injustice that Aleru talked about.
The truth is that the first cause of Boko Haram terrorism emanated from a sense of betrayal of the founder of the organisation and the political class who used him and his followers to attain political power and abandoned them after the elections. He launched a terrorist attack against the state and dangerously supported the physical assault with a persuasive ideology to his followers that western education is an abomination. The government neglected this uprising and underrated the fury of disappointed youths. For 16 years, Nigeria has been labouring under the suffocation of terrorist attacks from Boko Haram and the successive incompetent governments of Nigeria could not stop it. Of course they now receive assistance from foreign Sahelian terrorists to perpetuate their assault.
The main fuel of terrorism is hunger and hardship. One needs to be a millionaire to be a barber in Nigeria. There’s no steady electricity power in Nigeria. A youth must have a generator to be able to be a barber. He needs to buy fuel to power the generator at N1000 per litre. He needs to rent an apartment, buy equipment for the salon. Engage some workers to assist. At the end of the day, he cannot make both ends meet and the business collapses. Youths cannot go to farms because they may be murdered, raped, or kidnapped. When everything fails, the lure to be recruited as a terrorist becomes enticing. He simply needs to kidnap one very wealthy Nigerian and he will extort the kidnapped victim to the tune of more than N100 million. It will take a professor in a Nigerian university about 16 years to earn this amount. As Aleru submitted, terrorism stems from many years of neglect and the quest for survival.
The overall cause of terrorism is bad leadership in Nigeria. The solution is good leadership. Aleru was emphatic that the terrorists do not enjoy their lifestyle, neither are their parents proud of them, but they have to survive. Let the government of Tinubu get more serious in curbing insecurity, encouraging ranching, reducing cost of fuel and electricity tariff, while making the electricity available. The President should provide incentives for farmers to go back to farm to produce food. Ensure shelter to the homeless. If a man can afford food, clothing, and shelter, it will be easy to dissuade him from being a terrorist, because he is no longer in danger of not surviving, but simply needs a little push for advancement and development.
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