The gruesome and cold-blooded murder of three of the abducted students of Greenfield University, Kaduna, whose bodies were dumped close to the institution last Friday, is yet again another wicked and unconscionable act that portrays Nigeria as a barbaric and lawless nation. It also reflects the security deficit and incompetence on the part of relevant authorities to protect students and youths in general, who are supposed to be the future of the nation. This is a national tragedy of great magnitude and an infamy that has become a sore that should tug at the heart and soul of all those who lay claim to leadership positions in Nigeria.
Last Tuesday night, armed bandits kidnapped an unspecified number of students at Greenfield University located at Kasarami village off the Kaduna-Abuja highway in Chikun LGA. In announcing the killing of the three students, the Kaduna State government said: “In an act of mindless evil and sheer wickedness, the armed bandits, who kidnapped students of Greenfield University have shot dead three of the abducted students. The remains of three students were found today (Friday), in Kwanan Bature village, a location close to the university and have been evacuated to a mortuary,” Samuel Aruwan, the Kaduna Commissioner, Internal Security and Home Affairs, said in a statement. “Governor Nasir El-Rufai has condemned the killing of three students as sheer wickedness, inhumanity and an outright desecration of human lives by vile entities.” The statement also quoted El-Rufai as saying: “the armed bandits represent the worst of humankind and must be fought at all cost for the violent wickedness they represent.” The statement was, however, silent on the actual number of the students abducted.
Likewise, the Northern Governors Forum, expressed grief over the death of the students, describing it as shocking, barbaric and condemnable. The chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum and Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, in a statement said there was no justification whatsoever for the kidnap and murder of the innocent students, who were simply in school to study and prepare themselves for service to the nation, adding that the action was an act of sheer wickedness that must not be allowed to go unpunished. The governors recalled that the recent meeting of the Forum with President Buhari and service chiefs was to further consolidate on measures towards addressing the security challenges of the region and the nation as a whole. While commiserating with the families of the slain students, the governors called for the immediate and unconditional release of the other students still in captivity.
Amidst incessant promises of improved internal security, this sad and unfortunate incident is one too many, for this is not the first time students have been kidnapped and killed by bandits and terrorists. Before this, there had been the kidnapped girls of Chibok and Dapchi. What makes this latest spate of killings peculiar and more worrisome is that the kidnappers killed the students ostensibly to send a message to the Kaduna state authorities after Gov. El-Rufai went grandstanding with incendiary public pronouncements that the state government will not negotiate or pay ransom to kidnappers.
Though it is true that any compulsive killer would conjure any reason and seek out excuses for his deadly acts, it is also noteworthy the perceived animosity, arising from a backlash of El-Rufai’s acerbic public statements amid opposition by parents of the abducted students who seem more inclined to negotiate the release of their children, including paying ransom to the kidnappers. Certain sections of aggrieved Christian communities might also not be unaware of some of El-Rufai’s belligerence and bellicosity when it comes to the killing of Christians in Kaduna state; which some have described as genocide, by Fulani herdsmen. It might, therefore, be that years of built-up distrust, fanned by local fundamentalists have made the gunmen and their ilk view the abduction of students as fair game. This kind of distrust imposes a responsibility on both governments at state and federal levels.
Though rather belatedly, President Muhammadu Buhari mourned the brutal murder of the students describing it as a “barbaric terror attack.” In a statement by Garba Shehu, senior adviser on media and publicity, the president declared that: “banditry, kidnapping and the politics of murders will be fought with all the resources available to our country. My thoughts are with their families in this time of grief. May their souls rest in peace.” Buhari condemned the recurring incidents of kidnappings and killings in Kaduna in particular, and described as “unfortunate, the tenor of some political and religious leaders that seem to further incite and stoke the pain and anguish of mourning families, who are forced to confront these atrocities. Addressing this scourge requires a great show of empathy and coming together as a society to squarely confront these elements and the danger it poses to our democracy and peaceful life in the country,” the president said.
This kind of glib talk is self-righteous indignation, coming after the presidency admonished educational institutions across the country to beef up security around college campuses. What Nigerians expect from the man they elected president is to mobilize the police, security and intelligence organisations and leverage and deploy all resources available to him as commander-in-chief to act proactively to forestall future occurrences, by providing adequate security for students in dormitories. Quite predictably, a towering babel of angry voices greeted Buhari’s reaction as Nigerians reacted with shock and anger to the killing of the students. Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka cried out about the endless martyrdom of youths in the country; calling on the Buhari administration to seek help, saying the killing of the three students, was another indication that Nigeria was at war.
In a very soul-searching statement titled: “The Endless Martyrdom of Youth,” Soyinka said former vice-president Atiku Abubakar had summed up the nation’s feeling, when he said: “This most recent savagery against our youth is heartbreaking,” but he added: “More than the heart is broken, however, more than millions of individual hearts that still lay claim to bonds in a common humanity,” Soyinka said with grief. The accomplished man of letters said with this latest feat of cowardly savagery, one’s greatest fear “is that the nation must brace itself for a Beslan scenario, yet strive to avoid Nigeria become Africa’s Chechnya. I envy no one the task ahead, terminating the toxic harvest of past derelictions. Blame-laying is for later. Right now is the question of what needs to be done, and done urgently. We keep avoiding the inevitable, but that very unthinkable now hammers brutishly on our gates, the blood ransom arrogantly insatiable.
“This nation is at war, yet, we continue to pretend that these are mere birth-pangs of a glorious entity. They are death throes. Vultures and undertakers hover patiently but with full confidence,” he declared.
Soyinka noted that those who have been proven weak and incapable should learn to swallow their vain pride and seek help. According to Soyinka, “this is no new counseling. But of course, the dog that will get lost no longer heeds the hunter’s whistle.” He further noted that the dogs of war “stopped merely baying years ago. Again and again they have sunk their fangs into the jugular of this nation. I grieve with the bereaved, but mourn even more for our youth so routinely sacrificed, burdened with uncertainty and traumatized beyond youth’s capacity to cope. To this government we repeat the public cry: Seek Help. Stop improvising with human Lives. Youth – that is, the future – should not serve as ritual offering on the altar of a failing State. Not for the first time, what many hoped was a Natural Law of Limitations has been contemptuously, defiantly breached. We need to remind ourselves of hideous precedents. We must remember Chibok. And Dapchi. And numerous antecedents and after, unpublicized, or soon relegated to the sump of collective amnesia. The wages of impunity never diminish, on the contrary, they distend,” Soyinka noted.
The murder of the students is not only a dastardly and condemnable act, it signposts once again, the worsening state of insecurity in the country. It is a heinous crime against vulnerable youths who embody and represent the nation’s future. Beyond this despicable act of criminality and empty promises of improved security, the government must demonstrate sincerity of purpose and political will to address insecurity in the country. Owing to the gravity of the barbaric killings and its implication for education and the future of the nation, the government should match threats with action by finding the killers and bringing them to justice soonest. Ultimately however, the government must justify its sole purpose by performing its constitutional duty to Nigeria and its people. According to Sect 14(2) b of the 1999 constitution, “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” Surely, providing these basic necessities cannot be too much to ask from President Buhari and his minions who are passing around as Nigerian leaders.
