The Zamfara conundrum

                

AS is usual of the federal government, especially when it is confronted by complex and interwoven existential problems, it prefers to pass the buck. It passed the buck when criminal herdsmen began their murderous rampage through the Nigerian countryside years ago. When it faced reverses in its counterinsurgency operations in the Northeast, the government suggested that the opposition was politicising national security. Now, faced by the daunting problem of banditry in the Northwest, the government is blaming political and traditional elites. Those who collude with bandits, it warned, would be brought to book no matter how highly placed they are.

The Northwest bandit problem is the latest existential crisis facing the country. But rather than seek a deeper understanding of the crazy phenomenon, face the country and explain the dynamics and dimension of the crisis, and announce what it planned to do to knock the crisis into a cocked hat, the government talks only of sledgehammer measures and the collusion it suspects are orchestrated by certain persons in those afflicted localities. The government conveniently sidesteps the more salient issue of why it allowed the problem to fester from its little beginnings less than a decade ago. The truth is that the government is too distracted, and it has allowed the problem to become a monster. It should own up, then study the problem if it can, and find a lasting solution beyond pussyfooting and recriminations.