“SHEGE KA FASA” has been launched by the coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) to tackle security issues in the Northern part of the country.
“SHEGE KA FASA” is similar to Operation Amotekun which was launched by the six governours of the South-West geopolitical zone as a result of worsening security in the region. It generated controversies.
Addressing a press conference shortly before unveiling the outfit, CNG emphasised that for the past 12 years, the North has struggled with disabling challenges that include dwindling economy, rising poverty and more worrying, a crippling security situation that has taken a huge toll on lives, property and the overall cohesion of the region.
The spokesperson of the group, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman who addressed the press before the unveiling said that the.security challenges manifested in 2008 in the form of a deadly insurgency from the Northeast and within a short time, spread to other parts of the region and virtually turned the entire region into a battlefield.
The Coalition noted that while the insurgency raged, other disturbances were created in the region in the form of cattle rustling that pitched northern communities against each other.
“A new dimension was introduced to the farmers/herders conflict which gradually deteriorated into an uncontrollable proportion and deepened the artificial rift between communities in the region.
“This trend suddenly metamorphosed into deadly armed banditry and kidnapping for ransom which is recycled for arms and drugs. This is in addition to another frustrating trend of the theft and forced trafficking in northern children to other parts of the country for reasons that are largely dubious.
“The culmination of these security challenges has for the past decade turned the entire region into a house of horror with violent killings reported on a daily basis, communities displaced with formal and informal IDP camps spreading across the region.
“The situation today, on most northern highways, innocent travelers are waylaid, robbed and abducted, towns and villages attacked and sacked by bandits who have created an atmosphere of palpable fear across the region.
“As the situation grows more desperate by the day with the North as the most porous and vulnerable, with northerners as the most distressed and estranged.
CNG stressed that it is absolutely impossible to expect that communities would continue to fold their arms while criminals invade their abodes, kill, abduct and displace them.
“By this, today we unveil the symbols for the Shege Ka Fasa outfit which would be formally inaugutated in the coming few weeks when all necessary legal processes might have been completed or formally adopted and ratified by the northern states governors.” It stated.
CNG, therefore, observed that, there is an apparent correlation between the current security situation and the unchecked proliferation of hard drugs and other dangerous substances and that the current security challenges in the region are therefore driven by the proliferation of firearms and hard drugs which are deliberately introduced into the region by outside interests.
It also observed that the drug and firearms trade is fueled by illegal funds channelled by international financial criminals such as Yahoo boys desperate to launder money into the country and that already, this trend has completely undermined the economic and social fabrics of the North, and is responsible for the rampant social problems like banditry, armed robbery, kidnapping, and other forms of security challenges witnessed today.
The Federal Government was yet to react to it at the time of compiling this report.
