Insecurity in Nigeria has become a topic of great challenge to all. It is a matter that a lot of public discourse has been held on but it persists just like a tiger’s spots that cannot be washed away.
I have discussed it on this page several times but the persistence of this problem compels me to review government’s performance and attempt to profer solutions. It is a problem that affects all as actual victims are different from the rest of us who are daily terrified by the fear of its occurrence to oneself or a relative.
While Boko Haram terrorists have been operating in the North East of the country, the devastations being perpetrated by bandits in the North West which has spread to many other parts of the country, particularly, the North Central is alarming.
Terrorist activities of land grabbers which has been euphemistically referred to as farmers/herders clash has been a major source of displacement and worrying concern to many in the North Central as well.
The South East has been the sovereign territory of the unknown gunmen while the South South and South West have a huge share of criminal activities like kidnapping for ransom, robbery etc. It is a disturbing spectacle when you realise that the effects of these negative activities on the country is something that cannot be accurately calculated as all sectors are being affected.
Our agricultural production fell to the lowest ebb in 2023 when the problem of boko haram terrorism and banditry got to their peak. Food production fell sharply as farmers in the northern parts of the country are no longer able to access their farms in peace. They have been victims of rape, murder and their crops devastated by rampaging herders who fed someone’s sweat to their cattle with reckless impunity.
According to budgit in its 15th April, 2024 publication titled Nigeria’s Rising Insecurity: Implications for the Nigerian Economy, “These security threats not only undermine national stability and the rule of law but also have adverse effects on the economy, affecting price, output, employment, trade balance, poverty, inequality, defense expenditure, government budget patterns, socio-political environment, and several others.” In the circumstance, we are all victims as the effects of these crimes are bound to have impact on all and have definitely impacting everyone of us.
While the Federal Government has been making spirited efforts to combat these hydra-headed monsters, the complacency with which some sections of the ruling elite have been treating the problem of insecurity is quite confounding.
How can you be quiet or walk on with indifference when you realise that a section of the northern elite’s response to the challenges of boko haram and banditry has been one cold indifference if not outright connivance?
Have they forgotten that the people being affected are fellow Nigerians, fellow humans of the same origin and sharing the same space with them? I want to believe that if the northern elite have been as concerned as many of us are, the problems of banditry and terrorism would have been a thing of the past. Our leaders in the north live among their people.
They know those who are of violent dispositions without necessary regard to honest living and have been perpetrating the atrocities of blood spillage and wanton destruction of peace. It is certain that insecurity in the north in particular is a product of the conspiracy of the elite. A top security officer to whom I was generous in a difficult circumstance once warned me not to stay in a private house in Yola where I was going to have election petition in 2015.
He advised I should rather stay in a hotel and I was actually unable to understand this suggestion of his.
He then explained to me rhetorically by asking if I had heard of any hotel being bombed or attacked since the so-called ‘insurgency’ began. I searched my memory for any news item reporting any attack on a major hotel in the whole of the northern part of the country and I could not bring up any. Till today, I doubt if there has been anything of that sort.
While secondary school students have been victims of abduction in hundreds, markets have been bombed and private houses have been invaded with lots lives lost and properties destroyed or carted away.
The same has been the fate of villages and other less sophisticated human settlements.
My security personnel friend then told me that all the hotels and major business enterprises belonging to rich men were contributing money to buy their freedom from the terrorists.
They have been major providers of regular supply of funds to these men of the underworld and that is why they have been sacred cows in the hands of these derelicts. Some Governors have been alleged to be funding the activities of these men whose ravaging gusto has defied placation.
It is certain that with the defence and security architecture of Nigeria having been controlled for many years by prominent northern government appointees, if the northern leaders had been more sincere, the problem of insecurity in the northern part of Nigeria would have been a thing of the past. How they seem to be enjoying the devastations and desecrations around them and for whatever purpose is quite baffling and inexplicable.
Laying the blame on the government alone is not sufficient. It is difficult to understand how those dastardly elements who sacked many local government legitimate authorities in Katsina State during the time of President Buhari have not been brought to book. It is definitely elite conspiracy at play. It seems many leaders in the north believe that the country needs to be continually destabilized in order to sustain personal profit.
Thus, educated elements in the north must challenge their leaders to action. Anyway, we must thank President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government and the leadership of the Nigerian security apparatus for bringing this menace under control to a large extent as the perpetrations have substantially reduced. The problem is still not over and there is a lot to do.
On the other hand, there is also the problem of elite conspiracy promoting the problem of unknown gunmen in the South Eastern part of the country too.
The declaration of Monday of every week as sit-at-home day by the Biafran agitators and the unwholesome activities of the so-called unknown gunmen have left a bitter taste in every honest mouth. Today, many of our brothers of eastern origin are unable to visit homes for fear of being kidnapped for ransom.
Their fear is justified as many have died in the hands of kidnappers without the system being able to rescue them alive. They have thus become foreigners in their own father’s land. Many leaders and governors are keeping quiet as they believe that the activities of these criminals are aimed at advancing their ethnic agenda.
They have forgotten that even if their ethnic agenda is achieved with the efforts of these elements, it is a suspension of the doomsday as these violent achievers will seek to control government in accordance with their own orientation. How the current leaders would fare under the leadership of unknown gunmen is a matter better left to imagination.
The case of the North Central and the Middle Belt in the hands of marauders cannot be wished away. It is a horror tale of senseless killing and genocide.
How do we expect the country to progress in the midst of all these lunacies and maladies? In the South West, kidnapping took grip of our roads as many people were kidnapped into our forests and made subject of ransom. Many were killed while many came out with everlasting anguish, terror and fear. A lot of young children have become orphans while a lot settled and happy homes have been turned into grieving yards.
Our farms were deserted until recently when the spate of kidnapping and animal grazing started receding.
It is unfortunate that while our soldiers are dying in the forests and the government is mobilizing resources to safeguard our wellbeing, many of our youths have become the albatross of our existence due to past misgovernance. We must wake up to address our collective future and guarantee the safety of our tomorrow. We cannot continue this way and expect all to be fixed by the government while our youths do not see anything meaningful in honest living and good orientation.
It is therefore important that the level of poverty, ignorance and unemployment must be frontally addressed as physical warfare alone cannot win the war. Equally, those in the various security agencies that have turned the nefarious acts into industry must equally appreciate that they will directly or indirectly one day pay for it.
We must prepare to change the orientation of our people and reduce the number of hands available for recruitment into the workshop of evil.
