SECURITY: COLONIAL INDIA AS TEMPLATE

Nick Dazang

Peter Drucker, until his passing in 2005 at the age of 96, was a consultant and author. His prolific writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of management theory.
Drucker invented such enduring concepts as Management by Objectives and Self-Control. He predicted the advent of privatization and decentralization. He foresaw, and wrote about, the emergence of Japan as an economic power, the pivotal role marketing would play in a capitalist milieu and the emergence of the information society which requires life-long learning. Drucker identified the “knowledge worker” as the next frontier of management.
Peter Drucker, the acclaimed “founder of modern management”, inspires this treatise by virtue of his article published in the January 1988 edition of the Harvard Business Review(HBR). Entitled “The New Organization”, Drucker celebrates Colonial India as about the best form of administration in the world.
At the time being referenced by Drucker, India comprised today’s India and Pakistan. It was on 14th and 15th August 1947 when Pakistan and India respectively gained independence from the British.

Colonial India, on account of its spices and textiles, was referred to as the “crown jewel” of the British Empire. It was 4,083,095 square kilometers in terms of landmass. It had challenging terrains such as Kashmir and the Himalayan mountains. In spite of its huge expanse, and for the two hundred years during which the British colonized this densely populated sub-continent, never had more than one thousand civil servants administered it.

The high water mark of Colonial India, at a time when information technology meant the quill pen and barefoot runners represented telecommunications systems, was the relay manner in which information was escalated and cascaded from the bottom to the top and vice-versa. District Officers (D.O.s) reported directly to Provincial Political Secretaries who in turn reported to the Governor-General. Information cascaded in reverse order with instructions from the Governor-General trickling down to the D.O.s and in a seamless fashion.

This structure facilitated the timeous passing of information from the Districts to the Governor-General’s office. The upshot was that reports, which suggested some untoward developments were about to happen, got nipped in the bud before they morphed into full blown challenges. Thus, the Governor-General became, verily, on top of the situation, pardon the well-worn Nigerian refrain.
By Drucker’s account, “Each month, the district officer spent a whole day writing a full report to the secretary in the provincial capital. He discussed each of the principal tasks – there were four, each clearly delineated. He put down in detail what he had expected would happen with respect to each of them, what actually did happen, and why, if there was a discrepancy, the two differed. Then he wrote down what he expected would happen in the ensuing month with respect to each key task. And what he was going to do about it, asked questions about policy, and commented on long term opportunities, threats and needs”.

My surmise is that the same template was deployed in all its colonies until hubris and over reach finally undid the British Empire. It is important to note that in the first one hundred years of Colonial India, there were no telegraphs or railroads! Even by Nigeria’s infrastructural deprivation today, Colonial India was pristine, if not primitive.

Which is why this writer recommends that to overcome our security challenges, in the long haul, we should borrow from the template deployed in Colonial India but with modifications. Thankfully, we have structures in place. All we need do is to give robust effect, verve, requisite orientation and set goals to be attained by our agencies.

We have the Department of State Security (DSS), the Police and the National Orientation Agency (NOA). Each of these organizations is represented in each of the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) across the federation. All we need do is to task each one to file a report each week on issues trending in their areas of coverage. Emphasis should be placed on our heightened insecurity. Areas that are likely to be prone to violence should be promptly mapped out and flagged. These reports should then be harmonized, synthesized, analyzed and given to the appropriate authorities for their prompt and necessary action.

A reading of such a report should give the appropriate authorities an inkling of untoward events that are likely to unfold in due course. If they portend ill or harm, steps should then be taken to check mate them in their inchoate or incubation stages. This will forestall their getting full blown.

These reports should be shared at the level of the three tiers of government. That way everyone is on the same page, every critical stakeholder is carried along and our Governors can then assume their true roles as Chief Security Officers of their States.

True, Nigeria with a landmass of 927,768 square kilometers and a population of approximately two hundred and thirty million people, is huge and has challenging mountainous and riverine terrains. One of our former security chiefs, General Aliyu Gusau(rtd), touted this recently as a major challenge. He stressed the need to put more boots on the ground, especially against the backdrop of rising insurgency, banditry and kidnapping in the country. But the vastness of our terrain pales into insignificance when compared with Colonial India of yore or the India of today which has a landmass of 3,287,000 square kilometers.

I agree wholeheartedly that we need more boots on the ground to take up the spaces occupied and controlled by non-state actors. But we should complement boots on the ground with modern technology. Drones can be deployed to take vivid and graphic pictures of bandits, insurgents and terrorists in their enclaves and to ascertain their dispositions and capabilities. With precision, drones can also be deployed to take them out.

With heightened insecurity, hallmarked by insurgency, banditry and kidnapping, conventional warfare should be complemented with asymmetrical warfare. Premium should be laid on the training of Special Forces and Commando Units that can deliver lightning strikes or embark on search and rescue missions to extract abducted hostages.

Police and the Armed Forces should, as much as possible, be restricted to their traditional duties. A situation where the Armed Forces are deployed to address each and every security challenge means they are overstretched and this may render them ineffective. The Police, which remit it is to attend to civil matters, will feel short shrifted or driven to the margins. A situation where their schedules are implemented by sister agencies has consequences for their morale and confidence.

In spite of the need for each service to excel and to be reckoned with in its given area of responsibility, there should be continued and increased synergy, collaboration and information sharing amongst the services/agencies. This will eschew inter-agency rivalry as well as focus resources. Missions must be informed by unimpeachable and credible intelligence. This will not only minimize collateral damages but increase success rates, reduce casualties and boost morale.

Professionalism, neutrality and integrity should trump narrow considerations which undermine effectiveness and stellar performances. Above all, morale of our security personnel must be high at all times. State-of-the art equipment should be procured, regular trainings should be conducted to increase the proficiency and confidence of personnel, excellence should be prioritized and rewarded. And welfare issues should be treated with utmost despatch.

Beyond these, our governments, federal and states, should work assiduously to create jobs and to create an enabling environment for our private sector to thrive. It is when the Organized Private Sector(OPS) thrives that it can employ some of the youths trudging the streets with nothing to do. Our youths should be invested with skills so that they can use them to engage and empower themselves financially.

The more our youths are engaged, the less they become susceptible to crime.