For some time now, banditry and kidnapping have become very rampant in northern Nigeria. It started along Kaduna-Abuja road but now spreads gradually to other northern states.
In some states, bandits operate with impunity and become stronger every day to the extent that they collect taxes from communities and kill defaulters.
Our security agents have done well to tackle Boko Haram militants in the northeast but as the war against the insurgents is not yet over, another terrorist in the name of bandits sprang up.
The truth is that most of the kidnappers and bandits launching attacks and atrocities in the north are Fulanis. This is due to the high level of illiteracy, ignorance and lack of socialization on the part of the Fulanis. Some of them are pagans; they neither practise Islam nor Christianity. They are vagabonds. All they know is wandering inside bushes and forests to rear their animals.
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Thus, it is imperative to educate them. The Nomadic Education Commission/Agencies we currently have are not doing the needful in terms of eradicating illiteracy among the Fulanis. Nomadic education agencies should be overhauled.
In fact, there is a need to ban grazing in our forests. Grazing reserves should be provided in all local governments across the federation. All roving herders should be registered nationwide and those who refuse to register should be arrested. Nobody should move around in our forests in the name of hunting or rearing animals. Terrorism and criminality start from allowing people to wander in the forests.
So, anyone that moves around in the forests except the security agents or authorized vigilante security groups or farmers should be tagged as a bandit, armed robber or terrorist and should be arrested and prosecuted.
This is the only panacea to the security threats posed by the ignorant, itinerant and bush Fulanis in parts of the country. As long as Fulanis will remain in darkness of ignorance, uncivilized and roam about in the forests, they will continue to be murderous as a bushman has no goals to achieve in life and does not care about the well-being of others.
Furthermore, more policemen, soldiers etc should be recruited as the existing ones we have seems
to be overstretched. They are confronted with too many wars to fight and saddled with too many responsibilities to handle including insurgency, armed robbery, banditry, kidnapping, Biafra militants, protecting our territorial borders, guarding government houses, barracks, police stations, security offices and escorting public officers at public gatherings.
