This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com) Add cleanup rule | More info --On Thu, 21 Mar 2019 at 14:29, Tobi Adewunmi<tadewunmi@isgpp.com.ng> wrote:LAME RESPONSE TO UNENDING SECURITY JITTERS
by Ayo Olukotun
"In 2019, violence could intensify, triggering more displacements and exacerbating food insecurity for millions of Nigerians". - International Rescue Committee Report, December 2018
Insecurity of lives and property has returned to the front burner of national conversation, with the ongoing Kajuru crisis in Kaduna state, and the killing in Benue state a few days back, of farmers in Guma Local Government by suspected herdsmen. The prediction of the International Rescue Committee appears to be coming to pass, without much being done to avert it. Conceivably, at the time the Report was published, the politicians, having contacted an overdose of election fever, had little or no time to take seriously, the fundamental reason for the existence of states, namely, to act as a shield against the Hobbesian state of nature.
The IRC Report, quoted in the opening paragraph also informed that the past year featured, 'persistent attacks from armed gangs and communal violence', in which over 2 million Nigerians were displaced. It went on to say that Nigeria is one of 10 countries with the highest risk of humanitarian emergency this year. It will be interesting to know what the projections and scenario building of our own security institutions and our government are. That, at least, would be a signal that there is security planning, which begins with a mapping of challenges and remote sensing of possible flashpoints. This columnist's reading of the deterioration of security is that, it has to do with the divorce between policy science and the actual work of security organizations. There is also, the shift from governance to politics and political competition, because it is easier to shout slogans, utter clever ripostes, than the hard grind of governance interventions, built upon a study of the problems, thinking through them, and providing cogent solutions.
On Wednesday, the Federal Executive Council in its weekly meeting approved 8.5 Billion Naira to succour states ridden by internal conflicts, with its harvest of displaced persons. These states include Adamawa, Benue, Bornu, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara. There are of course, other theatres of conflict. such as Kaduna, which do not feature on this list, but more importantly, which is more consequential, administering remedies after the harm has been done, or proactively and expeditiously acting to prevent humanitarian emergencies?
The other point to be made concerns the administration of these resources, in the light of earlier experience regarding the mismanagement and outright looting of such funds. But that is a matter for another day. Who was not shocked by the revelation, a few days ago, by the governor of Zamfara state, Abdulaziz Yari, that the bandits which have terrorized that state, for over one year, are better equipped than the military sent there to ward off incessant attacks? Explained the governor, "they (the bandits) are in control of the kind of weapons that the (army) command in Zamfara does not have. In one armoury alone, they have over five hundred AK 47, we saw them". One of the issues to investigate would be, how this significant military build-up by bandits occurred under the very nose of Yari himself, who had governed the state for a number of years. It also draws attention to whether as a nation, we have given enough thought to the upgrade and maintenance of our security infrastructure, hardware and software, in the midst of ever rising challenges.
If you thought that what Yari had to say was an isolated case, then, consider the ongoing distress of criminal challenges by armed pirates in our maritime sector. In the wake of the murder of a naval rating, Chinedu Osakwe, by armed pirates, a fortnight or so ago, a former Senior Special Assistant on Maritime Affairs to the Presidency, Gbenga Oyewole, informed that, "The Nigerian Navy lacks enough platforms to man the nation's waterways. If as the time the last attack was happening, the naval personnel escorts on the boats under attack could radio any other platform, I'm sure the pirates would not have gone that far." In other words, key security infrastructure are in terrible disrepair with no decisive action, as far as we know, being taken. The untoward development mirrors the situation in the North East where our boys are reportedly beginning to dodge posting to the front because they are underequipped and carrying on heroically against better equipped insurgents. There was some discussion about this at the end of last year against the backdrop of a savage attack on our Metele stronghold, but the election, still ongoing, shoved that discussion out of the headlines (see Ayo Olukotun, 'Defence Sector Spending: Have We Come Full Circle?', The Punch, Friday, December 28, 2018).
Now that the elections are being concluded, hopefully, it is time to revisit the nation's foundational problems, several of them vexing, rather than being drowned out by party hacks attacking one political warlord or another, as if that is what will save the nation from its current status. Elections, are supposed to be about national renewal and a reimagining of the social contract, but one doubts seriously if the politicians know that, from the way they carry on, more or less fiddling while Nigeria bleeds. In the heat of the previous election, it was easy to demonize social critics and Rights advocates, by alleging that they were working for one party or another, but since the problems they raised have not gone away, and are in some cases getting worse, there is now nowhere to hide, except to act forthrightly concerning the citizens' unrelieved woes. We need to pose serious questions to those who govern us, while on their own part, they need to tell us what they are doing about spreading security jitters.
Interestingly, the rising vortex has also produced casualties within the military organization, including for example, the murder, last Sunday, of an army garrison commander in Bauchi, Colonel Muhammed Barack. Of course, fresh in our memory is the murder, in December, of former Air Chief marshal, Alex Badeh, and former Chief of Administration in the Army, Gen. Idris Alkali. This dimension raises the spectre of possible disloyalty within the military, to which President Muhammadu Buhari alluded some weeks back. If a security think tank exists beyond the conventional defence institutions, then it is time for it to sit up to come up with strategic solutions, as well as short and medium term panaceas. For example, we can no longer afford to treat the challenge as a police action problem, in which, security contingents are simply putting out fires breaking out here and there. Instead, we must see it as a governance problem, related to high unemployment, unacceptable level of poverty, which, according to World Bank data, is higher in the North, where most of the theatre of conflicts are, than in the South. Communities, long excluded from the orbit of governance, and abandoned by an incompetent state will sooner than later breed monsters that are hard to slay. That means, a holistic response must see crime as a social, rather than a law and order problem.
Finally, Buhari has demonstrated that he can win elections, but he must now increasingly worry about how to govern and secure the nation, so that history can have something substantial to record in his favour.
- Prof. Ayo Olukotun is the Oba (Dr.) Sikiru Adetona Chair of Governance, Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye
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