In the late hours of Saturday 28 November 2020 at a time when people are about to retire to beds after a busy election day for the local governments in Borno state, we were rocked by the saddest news that would give every human with conscious s nightmare.
That 43 farmers have been slaughtered in their farms in Zabarmari, I have always advocated against fake news, but for the first time, I wished this one could be truly fake but against my fears and wishes the horrific incident appeared to be true.
According to amnesty international of the 43 slain farmers, 16 are internally displaced persons for farm centre IDPs camp, while 10 women working in a rice farm in the area where the farmers were killed are still missing.
READ ALSO: Insurgency: Boko Haram beheads 43 farmers in Maiduguri
While BBC Hausa reported that a resident of Koshobe where the unfortunate incidents take place said 13 people were sent alive to come and narrate the story of the massacre, the farmers were mercilessly slaughtered from the back of their neck, while others have there heads completely rift off from there body and dropped on top of their chest, the terrorist further burned many places in the village.
Some people are still yet to be found after the attack that happened as results of the suspicions that the farmers are cooperating with security and revealing the hideouts of the perpetrators.
According to their message through the survivors and in effect, this inhuman consequences is as a result of the villagers’ cooperation to security that made them committed this gross atrocity.
Out of the 43 victims who lost their lives in this tragedy, 9 bodies are still not found in the Bush while 34 were recovered and buried this morning with the state governor and the house representatives member of the area in attendance.
Kwashabe is a town under Mafa local government area, neighbouring Ladin Buta and Zabar Mari of Jere local government, the place where the farmers were killed happened to be a pound where villagers catch fish and farm rice along a government reserve area in the place.
It’s noteworthy that Boko Haram has been known with these new tactics in villages and outskirts of towns for a while now, they capture and slaughter farmers without shooting guns so that other people working around the vicinity would not be alerted by the gun sound and run.
Farming is the best thing our people are good at and is basically the only option they have for their livelihoods and that’s why they still go to farm even with the obvious risks and imminent dangers attached to going to the bush these days.
I never thought there would come a time when farming to feed your family would be a crime, who would have imagined that just being a farmer living your honest and simple life in a village would make you a target.
What happened in Zabarmari is a manifestation of a calamity that has been showing indicators for quite a long time.
In recent times Boko Haram capture and slaughter farmers in some places like outskirts of Dallori to the extent that farmers now only go to the bush with escorts of vigilantes in the morning to do their work and then converged at an appointed time in which a whistle would be blown for people to come and be escorted back home, such as the level of urgency of the situation before this mass murder.
There is also the impression that beyond the speculation of killing farmers for spying and revelling there hideouts to security personal, that Boko Haram deliberately allow locals to plant and finish all there farming process until harvesting period before starting to kill people so that the farmers would stop coming to harvest which would enable them harvest and used the food.
I remember as a boy when we used to visit monogram during holiday’s, a village that can be accessed through Auno from the west and Limanti from the north, a type of small temporary villages that farmers used to build tache in the bush to stay for a farming period and live for several months from planting up to harvesting period before coming back home to Maiduguri.
I never thought there would come a time when even going there would be some sort of gambling with your life, but in the cause of this insurgency that place was razed to the ground and more than 20 people farming in the place were massacred.
Some people who used to farm there now travel to as far as Miringa in Biu local government for farming a journey of about 230 kilometres with its own risk of possible kidnapping or stepping on grenades in the road. Some people travel to Korowango in Yobe about 200 kilometres from Maiduguri for farming.
With this kind of ugly scenarios, the cordial relationship and Community cooperation with security would be compromised and that would be a measure sate back and another bottleneck in addressing this decade long of insurgency that has resulted in losing thousands of lives Displacing millions out of there homes and villages.
This is happening at a time when our brave men and women in the frontline are risking their lives and accepting repentance under the operation safe corridor, we are witnessing this horrific disaster at a time when the issue of rehabilitation and reintegration is in the table.
On 13th September 2020 the popular daily trust cartoonist Bulama Sketch a depiction of this reality where the president is insisting on local production while a bandit is chasing a farmer with Ak47 Gun to indicate the threats and dangers of killings and kidnappings of farmers happening in the country.
We are all in support of local production and agriculture to boost our economy and feed our growing population, however, providing a safe environment for farmers to go to farm without fear of been kidnapped or killed is a paramount responsibility that is necessary.
Last two weeks around 12th November 2020 its was reported widely that villagers in some areas in the northwest now pay taxes to bandit to allow them to go to the farm and harvest their hard laboured farm crops without been killed or kidnapped.
In essence, its high time to revisit the existing strategies and remodel the security architectures to align with the current realities, certainly the one on the ground is not working effectively, we cannot continue living like this if people can’t go to the farm we would not have what to eat when people have nothing to eat they lose their minds and become animals looking for just food to eat, foodstuff has already skyrocketed and is constantly on the rise on daily basis.
The securities are no doubt trying there best , and this is highly appreciated by all and sundry but there is need for improvement to mitigate this sort of incident.
May God forgive the shortcomings of those who lost their lives and gives there families the courage to withstand this difficult situation and protect others who are in the Bush all the time protecting lives or providing for their family in the farm.
The situation is ugly and needs immediate attention, but we are optimistic that the needful would be done by the concern parties. We look forward to the day when everyone would be free to travel from any axis of Maiduguri and indeed throughout the northeast without any escorts and not been attacked just like before.
We look forward to that day when Borno State would reclaim its glory of being the home of peace in the country. I am an optimist and I believe that it’s possible with the necessary concerted efforts and working mechanisms.
May God protect us from all evils and their transgressions.
Long live the federal republic of Nigeria.
Musa Gambo writes from Maiduguri, Nigeria and can be reached via email: Mgambo78@gmail.com or 07068849480.
