Nigerian Politics And The Characteristic Idiosyncrasies Of Defectors
Traditional Leadership Vacuum In Southern Kaduna And It's Consequences Thereof
December 21, 2020 Greg Abolo	0 Comments
By Col. Dauda Albehu Gora (rtd)
I start this essay with a very heavy heart on account of yet another brazen assault on the peaceful population of Gora Gan of Zangon Kataf Kaduna State.
So brazen and barbaric in its execution and right under the cowardly sleeping and snoring Military detachment less than 300 meters away, holed up in the village Primary School. The question naturally arises as to what these guys are doing being stationed there.
During my years of service to this nation and passionately for that matter, no soldier was to be deployed for Security or Guard duties without prior adequate briefing and Orders. During Internal Security duties as it is supposed to be the case with the Military detachment in Gora Gan. The condition under which a soldier could open fire includes, on the Orders of his/her Commander on the ground, or on his/her initiative where the Commander has been taken out, When the facility they are deployed to is under attack or arson or when the life of a colleague is under threat or in Self defence.
Very clearly while not aware of the contents of the Orders given to the Military detachment in Gora, it can safely be concluded that they serve no useful purpose.
The villagers are deceived into believing that the Military is stationed there to protect them, how wrong they have been. Put in another way, that Military detachment is not serving any useful purpose if two such attacks can occur within a 4 month period
In today's Nigerian Army I am left wondering if there is still remaining in the disciplinary books an Offence such as " Failure to Perform Military Duty ". In our days, failing to perform any military duty attracted severe punishment. Things may have changed after our time.
When the first attack took place in Gora Gan some months back, names of some known Fulani terrorists now sheltering in their Laduga enclave were put out to assist the security forces if they were interested in apprehending the perpetrators but they were obviously not interested since the terrorist have the license to kill. What manner of brains the murderous Fulani gangs carry in their skulls is difficult to fathom out. If not a beast, who will take the lives of children of 14, 11 and 6 years in the dead of night and in their sleep?
After the first incident and as usual the Kaduna State Dishonourable Commissioner for Insecurity and Homeland Affairs was all.over the place in his usual role as the official undertaker and conveyor belt for Condolence messages from the dictator of the State. There was the usual empty and drab promise before the cameras that the culprits were to be relentlessly pursued but where?
I am just done reading another worthless Insecurity Update from the commissioner for Insecurity on the 17 December attack and the content remains the same drab and inconsequential promises to hunt down the killers and to bring same to a justice system that is dysfunctional.
Under these unexplained failures of leadership at government level, how can the population repose confidence in such a government?
The population has been warned not to trust the security forces to protect them. Gen TY Danjuma's advice to this effect is clarion enough. It is for the people our people to either take heed or perish. We have witnessed one death too many and nobody knows when this is going to stop. I am not unaware of the fact that there is death everywhere in the land and without a shadow of doubt it is traceable to the vacuum created by leaders mostly in parts of Southern Kaduna which is usually outsourced from the diaspora instead of from within those resident within the communities.
Governments hardly accepts their failures and for sure leadership failings are at the very core of Nigeria's problems particularly in the area of providing security for the citizenry. The nation, our nation Nigeria has gotten it all wrong since the second coming of PMB.
While sympathizing with the dictator for the state of affairs in the area of security it is on record that he shot himself in the foot when he ascended the throne of governor and the first thing he did was to reward terrorism by paying compensation to them for the simple reason that they are as he claims, his kinsmen. Doing so obviously emboldened them to embark on more killing sprees. He went on and in a very bizarre manner remove many of the grassroot leaders of the people thus creating a leadership vacuum and we all know that nature abhors a vacuum.
During the good times in this country we saw and lived under very astute grassroots leaders and all went well. Under what we now describe as the Democratic era, politicians have made a complete mess of the leadership architecture at all levels.
Even lower animals know their leaders because they emerge naturally. That has all but changed the leadership emergence mechanism as politics has been brought in to play the most important role in deciding who emerges leader. Before now, it used to be that whenever a vacancy was created those likely to fill such vacant positions usually came from either the immediate or extended family of the former leader. Today, the leadership emergence system has been so serially abused that strange characters from the diaspora are smuggled in usually through the back doors to accupy some of the positions. Such usurpers in most cases are not the choices of the followership in which case a problem is already created.
In my humble view, unless a candidate is a resident of the community they seek to lead on a permanent basis such must never be trusted to lead effectively. There is now over reliance on academic qualifications without the requisite experience to provide astute leadership. Traders and business men have moved in to make a complete mockery of leadership mostly in the Southern part of Kaduna State.
The present generation of leaders hardly have time for their subjects rather it is their businesses that occupy their time. They only show up when there are issues to deal with or to receive important visitors. Put bluntly many of such leaders do not have the respect they truly are deserving of.
At the very least if for nothing, a leadership should be able to provide strategic direction to the people being so led. It is so tragic and unfortunate that in Atyap land and in the face of the hellish situation our people have had to live through at the hands of the genocidal Fulani, the leadership still believes that it is possible to live peacefully with the Fulani. To this end, the leadership has continued to pursue dubious peace with individuals supposedly from the other side who appear to have no connection with the genocidal Fulani. The other time one of such dubious Peace and Reconciliation meetings was hurriedly held and a communiqué issued. Even before the ink with which the communique was drafted dried, another murderous attack was carried out right under the nose of those who organized the gathering as if to spite the dubious effort.
The way things stand in Atyap land it is unclear whose interest the leadership is serving between the people supposedly being led and the government.
The truth be told: There is a disconnect between the leadership and the led. In the circumstance as in the latest attack on Gora Gan where infants were murdered in cold blood, houses burnt along with food, the toil of the last farming season one wonders how the survivors are going to make it through the weeks and months ahead. I cannot think of any genuine peace whilst the Fulani led government in Nigeria lasts because there is an agenda the purpose of which is to completely supplant our people from their ancestral lands.
A warning to all other Southern Kaduna communities and by extension the entire Middle Belt, today it is Atyap land that is under the AK 47s, WHO KNOWS which community will be next? For now we as a people will continue to look up to the hills from whence our help shall without fail come.
Col. Dauda Gora (rtd) writes from Kaduna, North West Nigeria.
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