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As usual, last week’s “Not too young to kill…” drew an avalanche of response. Once the hand that writes writes and moves on, what readers make of it is entirely their own making. But we can all learn from such responses and rejoinders; which is why I am printing this piece here today. Dripping with sarcasm and titled “TOO YOUNG TO DIE, BUT NOT TOO YOUNG TO KILL”, it is written by a prolific writer, Moses Oludele Idowu. Excerpts:
“I must salute Bola Bolawole, notable journalist and editor, for having the courage to go against the grain of popular opinion in his piece on this issue. We have a problem on our hands (because) everyone runs away from the problem, pretending it does not exist. Everyone avoids (asking) the right questions for fear of public backlash and loss of friends and platforms. But wrong questions won’t bring the right answers!
The arraignment of some teenagers (we do not have access to their birth certificates and cannot, therefore, confirm whether they are teens or not) unleashed knocks on the government and police alike, forcing them to quickly retrace their footsteps. The publicity it drew from the media (both local and international) and the public forced government to hurriedly discontinue with the trial!
These were “children” arrested in connection with the last protest on bad governance. Let me make myself clear from the beginning. I take it to be self-evident that every citizen has the right to protest against the government and its policies. It is a fundamental right and woe betides that government in a democracy that seeks to abridge that right! But the fundamental right to protest or express personal feelings and grievances has its limits. It does not confer on the protesters the right to deny other citizens their own right to stay away from such protest. Neither does it confer on the protesters the right to deny other citizens their own right to private ownership of property or the right to life and pursuit of happiness because they refuse to participate.
These rights are all enshrined in the same Constitution. The right to protest does not confer on any protester the right to loot a public library built at great costs and deny future generations the access to ancient collections. This, in itself, is a crime against future generations who would use the library. And, less I forget, the right to protest does not also confer the right to hoist the flag of another nation on Nigerian soil. That is high treason under any jurisdiction.
Sadly, most of the comments that I have seen on this subject by both Opposition politicians and commentators ignored these facts, choosing, instead, to lambast the police and the government for following the letters of the law. Commentators dwelt instead on the fact that the protesters were minors and minors should not be tried in an open court for, of all things, treason.
Let us now address the issues. It is true that minors should not be tried in an open court for treason. But what do we do when minors habitually commit major crimes? It may also be true that most of those “children” do not know the legal implications of hoisting the flag of another nation on foreign soil. But ignorance is no excuse under the law, as the law itself states.
We blame the police for enforcing the Law but we are also the first to blame them for doing nothing while minors loot a whole library and the police could not make any arrest!
The problem of minors commiting crime is common in a section of the country and this is due to an evil and pernicious cultural system that has festered for decades, depriving entire generations of children meaningful education and opportunities in life. We all know this but everyone prefers to shy away due to political correctness.
The hardship inflicted by the ruinous economic policies of the present government has been generally widespread across the land; the suffering of the last one-and-a-half years has been fully democratised. How come, then, that it is only in a certain section of the country that you find “children” engaging in the looting of public property? Is it a coincidence that these “children” are the products of a culture that breeds the almajiri system that is at the centre of poverty and insecurity in the North?
In the videos released during the protests, we saw “children” carting away refrigerators, chairs, even roofing sheets and properties of innocent law-abiding citizens who, themselves, are also victims of the same neo-liberal economic orthodoxy to which our government has enslaved itself. But we have been here before! That is why this problem won’t go away unless we lay the axe to the root of the tree.
The almajiri system must be eliminated or thoroughly purged of its obnoxious and traditionally-anachronistic accretions; modern educational skills that will give access to opportunities for these children must be provided and enforced. It is not enough to cry against government for dragging minors and children to court. When minors commit major crimes should they go scot-free? This is what breeds the culture of impunity for which Nigeria is now notorious.
The same Northern elites shedding crocodile tears over the trial of minors are responsible for the plight of these children due to years of neglect, refusing to educate them as they have educated their own children because they exploit these children for their own religious and political agenda.
I have a lot of respect for the Sardauna of Sokoto, the late Sir Ahmadu Bello. He built many standard schools across the Northern region which the children of the poor could attend and they were free. I am a product of one of those schools.
The new elites of the North do not think in the same direction. They are more concerned about their own family and care nothing about the education of the poor and their children.
When you hear someone threatening his political foes that “the dog and the baboon will be soaked in blood”, he was not banking on his own children to lead the front but on these abused and much-traumatized minors. They are the canon fodders and storm trooppers who lead the Northern elite’s undeclared war and agitation against the state and any government that does not catch their fancy.
That is why hammering on the fact that they are children or teens does not address the issue. There is something the CIA calls “draining the swamp.” It does no good returning anyone, adult or minor, to the same environment generating and sustaining the same conditions responsible for the crime for which he was accused.
Returning a terrorist, for example, to the same environment where he would continue to receive the same indoctrination that encourages terror without first smashing that environment or “draining the swamp” is self-defeating. That is why the trillions of Naira spent on the problem of insecurity in the North has not yielded the required fruits. As long as Boko Haram and the other insurgent groups have a ready source of recruits from the same minors and under-age children, Nigeria will remain in this hole.
Policemen were killed during the last protests; let us also spare a thought for them and their families! Or are we saying that the life of a Nigerian policeman does not matter? Try and kill an American policeman or, worse still, a British police man or woman and then claim you are a minor!
When “children” commit adult crimes habitually, what is to be done? When minors commit major crimes, should a nation look away? Does being a minor confer immunity from prosecution? This is at the roots of impunity in many Northern states and one reason why development eludes that part of the country. Impunity is a setback and a false framework for development. Anywhere the Law is not free and the Rule of Law is not supreme, progress will not abide.
This is why we may need to consider the wisdom of Gen. Joshua Dogonyaro. There was a terrible religious riot in 1986 in Kaduna, leading to the death of many people, mostly Southerners, and the destruction of churches and private property. The army of rioters and arsonists were led by this same group of “teenagers” and “children” who know how to kill and torch buildings but are too young to be tried. The riot went on for days. Policemen could not contain it. This was under the military regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida.
Finally, soldiers were called in to restore order. Dogonyaro, the GOC of 2nd Mechanised Division, ordered his men into the streets to arrest those torching buildings or maiming and killing but if they resisted arrest, to shoot at sight! Many were arrested and those who were defiant got killed. Soon, order was restored. It was here that something happened: When a child commits a crime and is apprehended, the one who sent him shows up!
It was here that the late Abubakar Gumi showed up, confronting the soldiers and asking the arrested “minions” to defy soldiers. This infuriated the soldiers. He was nearly shot in the process. The soldiers refused to release the arsonists. The same cries of subjecting “children” to trial and military punishment were raised by the same people. It was here Dogonyaro said something that we need now to revisit. He said: “Children who are old enough to kill, slit the throat of adults and set fire on buildings and watch the effect with joy are not children and would be treated as such with the full weight of the law”
For as long as Dogonyaro remained the G.O.C of Kaduna, no further riots occurred until he was posted out of the city. The Tinubu government has discontinued the trial of the “children” and as a patriot, I abide by it but that will not solve the problem. The same government and the public crying under-age children should do something about “draining the swamp” where this calamity is daily incubated. Else, the same “minors” will soon be involved in another act of treason and the same cry for forgiveness will go up again. This will reinforce the culture of impunity that is at the root of Nigeria’s underdevelopment”.
Well said! Security matters are damn too sensitive to play politics with. We do so at our own collective peril!
* Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/ Editor-in-chief of The WESTERNER newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday TRIBUNE and TREASURES column in NEW TELEGRAPH newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.
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