EMERGENCY ON SECURITY

By Nick Dazang 

The bad omens were there. And it did not require the gift of prescience or foretelling the future to appreciate that our heightened insecurity would come to a head and that it would result in the declaration of an emergency.

For the one and half decades that insurgency, banditry and terrorism have held the country in thrall, successive administrations – from Goodluck Jonathan’s to Muhammadu Buhari’s and thence to Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s – have not viewed these heinous crimes as existential threats to the Nigerian State.
Rather than perceiving these malevolent acts of terror as a clear and present danger to the Nigerian State and to mobilize resources to confront it headlong, they preferred to pussyfoot or face it piecemeal. The terrorists were either coddled or treated with kid gloves.

At a point, even offers of help by foreign powers were cavalierly spurned. Up to last week, when school children, abducted from a school in Kebbi State, were recovered, the Nigerian State continued to negotiate with terrorists. Translation: in place of abducted citizens, millions of Naira are shelled out to these terrorists for their release. These humongous sums are then used by the terrorists to acquire more sophisticated weapons, to recruit fellow travelers and to continue with their nefarious abductions. These abductions are often carried out at the expense of the victims, the security personnel who are putting their lives on the line and the already sullied reputation of the country. In the North, kidnapping for ransom has become a huge industry and the fad, hence the slew of abductions we have witnessed in recent times.

Our security agencies, which ought to be kitted to the hilt with modern equipment, to check this menace, make do with obsolete ones, rendering them as mere sitting ducks in any confrontation with the terrorists. Whereas the terrorists are said to be adept at deploying drones to collect data and to deliver bombs with precision, our security agencies rely on technology of the Stone Age, their professional training and wits.

There are no sufficient boots or offices to cover the large swath of Nigeria’s landmass and forests. A BBC Correspondent, Medina Maishanu, reported that at Papiri, Niger State, where not less than 300 students were abducted from a Catholic school, there was no security presence. The only police post in the village had no electricity. Neither did it have a vehicle for its logistics. This infrastructural deprivation can be extended across the country.
In spite of strident and rooftop calls to this government – right from its inception – to prioritize security, these calls have gone unheeded and unhearkened. Until now. This writer, among others, made this a shrill refrain in the knowledge that: no lofty activity, be it agricultural, commercial or educational, could take place in an atmosphere of chaos and insecurity. Besides, the framers of our constitution were not stupid when they insisted that the primary duty of government was to protect the lives and properties of its citizens. On these pivotal scores, our governments have failed, with distinction. Not only that, they have, by dint of their recklessness and complacency, pushed the country to teeter at the brink of State failure.
Even now with a state of emergency, pronounced with presidential flourish, one must express profound misgivings as to whether such a fiat will solve our security challenges. By one authoritative account, not less than 100,000 policemen are currently in the service of protecting Very Important Persons(VIPs). Yet the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, announced that only about 11,566 or about 10% have been withdrawn as per the order of the President.

It is correct, in view of our dire security challenges, to proceed on a recruitment binge of personnel for the armed forces. This will put more boots on the ground as well as enable us occupy ungoverned spaces exploited by these terrorists. To accomplish this, however, it will take at least six months, even in a crash program, to identify, vet, recruit, train, equip and deploy such new/rookie personnel. In the meantime, we should be guided by the fact that we may not see a let up in the uptick of terror by its perpetrators. They are likely to continue in order to make a financial killing while their evil enterprise thrives.

No matter how determined our security agencies are in decimating these terrorists, their mission can be accomplished, and in good time, only if they are robustly equipped and motivated. The revelations made in the aftermath of the recent abductions, relating to their parlors provisioning, suggests clearly that they are behind, if not below the pale. The government must address this forthwith. It should also allow those helming our armed forces to ventilate themselves freely with regard to their requirements.

Since the inception of insurgency in Nigeria, the terrorists have betrayed canny abilities. They have been agile and they have forged alliances locally and internationally. From BOKO HARAM, they have metastasized and morphed into ISWAP, ANSARU, LAKURAWA and MAHMUDDA, under the guise or disguise that they were splintering. They have also entered alliances with ISIS and El Shabaab. By so doing, they have leveraged equipment, technological know-how and strategy. It is feared that they may have infiltrated our security agencies through turn coats and quislings. Our security personnel must up their game and surpass them in these regards.

It is unhealthy that each time school children are abducted, we react by shutting down schools. By shutting down schools, we compound the number of our out-of-school children, said to be largest in the world. We also, inadvertently, grant the terrorists easy victory by achieving their goal of “Boko Haram” or learning is prohibited. We should be proactive. We should dedicate a department of one of our Services, say, the Nigeria Civil Defense Corps to guard schools. More of such guards should be deployed to schools that are vulnerable and remote. Once the terrorists know that the schools have a semblance of security and they can call for reinforcements at short notice, they will re-think their attacking them.