May Notes: Kidnappings in Ogbomosho, For Daddy at 63, and Dinosaur SPF

In mid-May, 46 people – seven teachers and 39 children including a 1.5-year-old – were abducted in a coordinated attack on three schools in Ogbomosho, Oyo State. One teacher, Mr. Joel Adesiyan was killed during the attacks. The kidnappers then beheaded another teacher, Mr. Michael Oyedokun, and released a video on social media.

The Nigerian state has mostly carried on as usual since the kidnapping. The Oyo State governor has engaged in party activities, appearing all smiles at a rally to nominate candidates for next year’s elections. Similarly, the president participated in primaries to secure his nomination for re-election. The Ojude Oba extravaganza went ahead as planned. Some children of Oduduwa dressed to the nines in colourful attire that was incongruent with their dilapidated surroundings, while other children of Oduduwa spent yet another night in the cold and rain of the forest.

Negotiations must be ongoing, but there isn’t a sense that this is something out of the ordinary. Twelve years and at least 17 mass abductions after Chibok, the Nigerian state now treats school abductions like rain and tax (it’s inevitable!).

Initial attempts to recover the abducted citizens by force have already failed, foiled by improvised explosive devices. The kidnappers have all the leverage with 45 lives still at stake. Further attempts to recover them by force will likely result in more beheadings. I cannot imagine seeing any of those children killed. So, the government needs to negotiate.

But when we negotiate with this group, as we have with others, we accelerate a vicious cycle. Paying money to this group provides them funds to keep their operations going and inspires other terrorist groups to carry out similar attacks. Today’s payment in Oyo helps fund tomorrow’s abduction in Kwara. Abductions are slowly becoming a guaranteed money printing machine in Nigeria.

This is all really sad. I was also born and raised in Oyo State, within 96km (as the crow flies) of the Yawota Nursery and Primary School from where some of the children and teachers were taken. My mother and nephew live in Oyo State. Mass abductions used to be something that happened in faraway places - first in other countries, then in remote parts of Nigeria. It is shocking that this is now happening that close to home.

It is worth knowing that this southward expansion is not random. Researchers who study these groups (see reading recommendation 1 below) have identified that armed groups deliberately scout for areas with some banditry but no dominant warlord. Old Oyo National Park had already been identified as one such corridor, with groups probing the Oyo/Kwara forest belt before these attacks. These bandits did not accidentally spill south. They moved there on purpose.

What is even more shocking is that the government seems helpless in the face of this onslaught. Three presidents since Chibok, there seems to be very little difference in our approach to fighting insecurity. Instead, there is a relentless march onwards by terror while Nigerians retreat into cities and change their habits to protect themselves.

It is all very disheartening, and I currently see no way out of this.

My dad would have been 63 on May 17. It’s already been nearly four years since he died, and the passing of time makes his loss easier to bear with each month that goes by. But birthdays are always harder than other days. I remember him a lot more, re-enact our morning phone call all by myself, and imagine all the ways he would have changed as he aged.

While he didn’t ask for much when he was alive, he was always clear on one thing. He wanted us to make sure his sermons didn’t just rot away in cassettes or on a hard drive after he passed away. He reminded me often, via SMS around his birthdays and via Facebook comments whenever the subject of legacy came up.

For his posthumous birthday this year, I built him a website to house the material we have from his 34 years of preaching and teaching. It was lovely, but difficult, to listen to his sermons again, decide which ones to load to the website first, and transcribe and summarise a selection of them. I also really enjoyed building the website itself. I had tried to contract it out in the past but none of the proposals really fit my vision for it. Doing it myself felt like a labour of love – like all those years ago when I would type his correspondence and take his notes – and there were several moments in the process where I again felt very close to him.

The website is here, if you want to take a look. I’ve intentionally created something that is low maintenance and can continue to exist for as long as there is an internet. While my dad is no longer here, his preaching continues to speak to me. And while OG never met him in person, she will eventually come to know his mind through his preaching too.

“Let’s put your sun cream on so we can go see the dinosaurs.”

“Yes let’s do it. Can we put sun cream on the dinosaurs too so we can keep them safe from the sun?”

Reading:

• This month, James Barnett’s Kachallas and Kinship: Understanding Jihadi Expansion and Diffusion in Nigeria (published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point) made a strong impression on me. It is a long read, but one of the most analytically rigorous things I have come across on the insecurity crisis in Nigeria. Barnett draws on fieldwork and direct interviews with non-state actors to map how different armed groups - bandits, jihadists, and the increasingly blurred line between them - are multiplying and expanding across Nigeria, including southward. If you want to understand not just what is happening but why the Nigerian state keeps finding itself on the back foot, read this.

• I’ve been reading Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans this month. It’s a good book with several tools for creating and living a purposeful life, and it’s the kind of book one should return to from time to time as circumstances change. As I’ve gone through the book, I’ve been struck several times by the fact that the real value lies in the exercises – sitting with the discomfort of evaluating where you are today, figuring out your workview and lifeview, and so on. For example, I’ve been logging all my activities at work for the past several days, rating my engagement and energy with different activities in a bid to clarify which parts of work I really like and which parts are just meh. Change comes from doing the work, not from racking up book counts for Goodreads.

Listening:

• For those who don’t like long books (no judgement!) or who like to supplement them with podcasts, here’s a one-hour podcast with Mel Robbins, Bill Burnett, and Dave Evans. It contains all the key ideas from the book in a short and easily digestible format. You can then just grab the workbook and work through the exercises directly. Give it a go if you’ve got some time to kill this week.

Happy New Month!

Koye.