By Dr Anastasia Ugwuanyi

Ina gaishe ka, Baba… Baba, Ka na lafiya kwa?

Permit me to write you a letter, as you get ready to travel to Daura. I need to share a heartache with you Baba, as a daughter, by political genealogy.

100 million Naira; that is the value and ransom a fellow Nigerian placed on a mother, a sister, a wife and a teacher of children. Her crime? Being a Nigerian and living in Nigeria.

A few mornings ago, I woke up to a distress call that a friend had been kidnapped from her house, in full view of her husband and her young children. Several harrowing nights into her abduction, all that was known is the ransom money for her kidnap. Difficult to imagine and heart-breakingly so, how, as a woman, she fared in an unknown location, outside the comfort and convenience of her family and the normalcy of her daily existence. How was she able to sleep, perform ablutions see the same sun rise over her that her family could see and yet be kept against her will and away from them?

How was life expected to be normal for her children and her husband, seeing the sun go down and knowing that mama is in an unknown location, against her will, in the company of people who see her only for the money they can extort from her family and friends?
100 million Naira fa, don Allah, hakuri mana!

How and from where and why should this be our reality for these past years? Baba, her crime and the crime of others who have had to endure this, is being Nigerian and living in Nigeria.

My people say, when others carry a corpse on the way for burial ‘dauke gawa’ it is as if ‘suna dauke da itace’ that is, until you personally have to carry a loved one.

For each story of kidnapping and abduction, eight pupils, 84 students, travellers on a train from Abuja to Kaduna, Leah Sharibu and so many others who have suffered this abhorrent and gruesome crime of man’s inhumanity to man, it has always been heart-wrenching to imagine, and now this one, Baba, Zuciyata tana kuka!

Our country, Baba is home to so many from different tribes, and social demographics, our agency as a people in different fields of endeavour is renown globally, both positively and negatively. In the past couple of years, Baba, the exodus of a generation in search of spaces with job security, food security and security of life has been unprecedented.

How did we travel from a country of abundance in the 70’s and 80’s when 1 US dollar was equivalent to single digits in Naira, to this time, where a dollar is equivalent to three digits in Naira, to a time where men born by women and who sucked at the breast and were nurtured to adulthood on tuwo and miyan kuka prepared by their mothers , who drank fura da nono from cows owned by their fathers and played with other children, are now so poverty-stricken and brazenly wicked as to no longer consider buying and selling of goods but now ‘steal and require money of fellow humans’, this horrible wave of kidnapping and abductions!

How did we arrive here Baba? How did this become ‘normal’? Is there not something you can do in these remaining days before you travel to Daura? Is it possible Baba, for you and our elders in power to reflect and pause and consider the legacy that this regime is leaving? Don Allah!

The first thing to do when confronted with a sickness is to question the cause. When a tree needs to be cut down, attacking the branches alone, is foolishness. Kidnapping and abductions are not in our culture of ‘routine impunity’ as a nation. Sadly, corruption, election rigging, bribery and such like, we, unfortunately, seem to have academic certificates for, but to go into this Cambridge, A-level of wickedness as a democracy, is deeply disturbing Baba, and under your watch. Allah kiyaye!

They say that the root cause is poverty which is systemic and strongly connected to a socially bankrupt security and protection system. It may be naïve to think this is the only cause. Some say that the failure to deal with the free herding and settlement issues is contributory, again ban sani ba!

Baba, as you pack up for Daura, Don Allah, is it possible to plead with you to address this matter? Don Allah, yi Magana, yi wani abu! Ina rokonka!

One glorious act of redemptive justice for our country Nigeria, your country. We will never forget. Ba za mu yi ba!
It is possible to strengthen our security and protection agencies, to put in place measures that will curb this curse of poverty and insecurity. Surveillance by satellite of hard-to-reach areas, hotlines for reporting that are secure and that do not expose the reporters, aerial patrols of settlements and bushes, commando special units that are trained for this, banning unregistered motorcycles, once and for all, tagging motorcycles with trackers from manufacturers that cannot be tampered with. Converting to a cashless society, where cash transactions can be monitored. I do not know, I speak only in small doses of understanding of the possible solutions, but anything to stop this is in desperate need!
Please, Baba, do this for us, just before you leave for Daura!