The guards, when eventually formed, should stem the enduring atrocities in the country’s vast forests

In a bid to rout the organised criminal gangs who occupy ungoverned forests and wreak havoc on Nigerians, President Bola Tinubu has hinted of deploying forest guards to stem the rising insecurity. According to the president, the guards will be trained, and armed with modern technological gadgets to combat the deteriorating and festering crime. This is an idea we wholeheartedly endorse. Across the country, criminal gangs are increasingly turning forests and forest reserves as bases to launch attacks on homes, travellers, and schools. The forests have become hideouts for thieves, kidnappers, ritual killers, and cattle rustlers; and camping sites for insurgents.

Ordinarily, forests and forest reserves ought to be accorded special attention, as sanctuaries for endangered plant and animal species. In the 60s and 70s forestry was a foreign exchange earner through large-scale exportation of timber and wood. But if these were sidelined because of the impact on deforestation and climate change, forestation is still widely used as a bulwark against desert encroachment. Sadly, the reserves have become havens for criminal activities. Almost daily, bandits kidnap, rape, kill and torture victims to pay millions of naira or dollars in ransoms. It is a worrying trend that must be curbed.

In the past week, two traditional rulers, including a retired army General have been killed in their palaces in Ondo and Kwara States by criminal gangs who abducted several people. Unfortunately, such atrocities are being committed daily by terrorists, bandits, and kidnappers who have converted many ungoverned forests across the country for all kinds of atrocities. The notorious Sambisa Forest in Borno State, a once flourishing game reserve, still serves as the stronghold of Boko Haram terrorists where many innocent persons and schoolgirls were killed or held in bondage. As security forces struggle to purge the reserve and other forests in the north-eastern states of Yobe and Adamawa of terrorists, bandits and armed herdsmen invade many forest reserves in the North-West and southern parts of the country, unleashing terror day and night. In December 2020, for instance, bandits abducted about 300 pupils of Government Science College, Kankara, Katsina State and reportedly took them into the notorious Dajin Rugu Forest stretching from Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State through Katsina and ending in Zamfara State.

Similarly, many communities in Taraba State came under severe and regular attacks from criminals who occupy their vast forests. Under the guise of herding cattle, they destroy farms, kidnap for ransom, and commit all sorts of atrocities, including the raping of women and girls. Worried by the criminality in his domain, the Emir of Muri,

Alhaji Abbas Njidda Tafida in 2021 issued an ultimatum to criminal herders to vacate the forests within 30 days. The emir, who is Fulani, said if the herdsmen, whom he identified as nationals of some neighbouring countries refused to heed his warning, they would be killed. Late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State issued similar orders to criminal gangs who had turned some forests in his state into killing field and kidnapping for ransoms. Ondo and Taraba were forced to join other states like Benue and Ekiti in banning open grazing of cattle, in order to protect residents of their states from the activities of some herdsmen who hide behind grazing of cattle to perpetrate all kinds of criminality. If the crime was not eliminated, it largely subsided.

But of late the spate of kidnappings for ransom has become frightening. Inordinate killings are rife. The ransoms are increasing daily, demanded in millions. Every Nigerian seems to be living in terror spaces daily, as no time is safe, and no place is sacred. The security agencies are stretched to their limits and overwhelmed.

The current situation where criminal cartel and terrorists (many identified as non-Nigerians) traverse the length and breadth of the country killing and causing multiple discomfort to innocent citizens cannot be excused or tolerated. The proposed forest guards must be well equipped to combat the crimes it is created to fight. They must network with other security agencies and collectively rout the criminals in the forests.

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