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Killings, arson, banditry have become common on our shores.
Report had it that more than 2. 3 million Nigerians have been displaced by conflicts since 2013, while about 250,000 of them fled into neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, all in a bid to escape the massacre by terrorists .
Though some of those who fled had returned to the charred remains of what used to be homes, others are still in these neighboring countries , trying to start life all over again.
In Katsina state alone, at least 33,130 people were displaced last year.
At first the wave of these killings were restricted to the North East alone. But today, it has snowballed into a violent twist across the country, with different methodologies.
Casualties
According to the 2019 Mass atrocities casualties tracking report by Global Rights, an international human rights capacity-building Non-Governmental Organisation, between 2018 and June 2020, life had been snuffed out of 6,982 Nigerians, in violent incidents which included: gang clashes, extra-judicial killings, kidnappings and Boko-Haram/ Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP attacks, according to the report. The victims included 6,501 civilians and 481 security agents .
Among the deaths were farmers who went to their farmland to do justice to their only means of survival, only to be abducted and beheaded. A vivid instance was that in Zabarmari village , Borno state, November last year..
The escalating violence forced many farmers and their families from their homes, and also deprived them of cultivating their farms during the 2020 rainy season, thus indicating food scarcity.
Between January and June 2020 alone, at least 1,126 people were killed in the northern part of the country. Out of this figure, 366 persons were killed in Kaduna State .
Children too
Children were not spared either, as reports had it that not less than 1000 of them had been killed since 2018.
In 2018 alone 405 children had their lives cut in their prime. Some of them were killed at the foetus stage while others were slain while being delivered.
In 2019, 3,188 lives were lost between January and December, according to a report by Global Rights. They included 2,707 civilians and 481 security agents.
Borno State recorded the highest casualty that year, with 728 deaths , followed by Zamfara with 450 deaths. Kaduna state recorded 280 casualties, Katsina, 254; Taraba 181; Rivers ,176’ Benue, 167; Niger, 100; Sokoto , 90 and Kogi state, 88.
Security agents were also hacked to death in the course of protecting the lives of the citizenry. They included soldiers, naval personnel, Policemen and officials of the National Security Defense Corps.
However, the casualties recorded in 2019 showed a slight down turn, when compared to 2018 which recorded 3,428.
Spread of kidnappers
At the moment kidnapping seems to be the most committed crime in Nigeria as kidnappers have taken over the nation’s expressways to unleash mayhem on helpless Nigerians.
Investigation revealed that these kidnappers who hide under the cover of herdsmen are from Niger and Chad.
Their influx into the South West region of the country was facilitated last year during the lock down , when there was restriction in interstate travel, as part of measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 pandemic.
There were reports of some strange movements of some persons into Lagos and other states in the South West then, with some of them arrested while sneaking into Lagos and other states in the region at night. Some of them deprived from entering the state and sent back to where they were coming from .
Unfortunately, there were no corresponding approaches to ensure they actually went back to where they came from.
Rather, these strangers who could not speak English language were seen in some video that went viral on social media, taking alternative roads in the bush to their initial destinations.
SOURCE AND REPORT FROM VANGUARD
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