Insecurity: Rationalising failure

One thing opinion writers try to avoid is continuously writing about the same thing and sounding like a cracked record. The best way of doing this is to ensure that opinions are pegged to major current news events. However, when the news is dominated by recurrences of the same horrific, reprehensible and deadly events, then nothing is more important than constantly addressing the issue. It’s generally agreed that positive action is required to end the routine carnage and sheer brigandage currently pervading the nation, but government has shown neither the capacity nor the will power to prevent the atrocities or apprehend perpetrators.

Although it’s trite, it bears reiterating that this administration is unashamedly failing in its primary function of protecting lives and property. Over the past seven years bandits and terrorists have expanded their killings, kidnappings, rape and pillage yet no one has been held accountable.

Many commentators believe that this administration has failed in virtually all aspects of governance and there is no reason why security should be an exception! Truthfully, in addition to pervasive insecurity, higher institutions are closed again; the economy in a complete shambles; police are threatening strike; electricity supply is more erratic than ever; citizens are fleeing the country in droves and even our once feared national football team the “Super Eagles” has failed to qualify for the upcoming World Cup!  Truthfully Nigerians are surrounded by failure on all fronts!

The security situation is so dire that state governors are either threatening to employ mercenaries to provide security, or advising citizens to arm themselves for self-defence. The federal government seems impervious to their dilemma. Governors as chief security officers of their states are trying to distance themselves from a growing belief in rumours that top government officials are somehow complicit in the failure to ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. According to news reports over 3,000 people were killed or abducted in the first quarter of 2022. It simply makes no sense that the Nigerian Army and Police are always outnumbered by terrorists, bandits and kidnappers. Lamentably ministers and presidential spokespersons live in denial of reality. Their serial denial of truth leaves little hope that a solution to the problems of insecurity will come from this administration. Nigerians can only pray that things would not have gone too far out of hand before this administration thankfully leaves office next year. The incoming administration must carry out mass recruitment into the Nigerian Army and police, deploy drone technology and develop air-cavalry national guardsmen (soldiers in helicopters) who can be deployed immediately to pursue and eliminate perpetrators of killings and kidnappings. Current government spokespersons are reminiscent of “Comical Ali” whose real name is Saeed al-Sahaf. He was Saddam Hussein’s Minister of Information during the Gulf War and appeared on TV daily to announce phantom Iraqi military successes and predict the failure of the American invasion. He stuck to his lies right up until Baghdad was captured! Any political appointee who brazenly declares to be true what everyone else knows to be patently false is now referred to as a “Comical Ali”. Ignoring the comical denials of government appointees, some elected representatives in the National Assembly have supported calls for Nigerians to be legally empowered to bear firearms for self-defence against the rampant wanton killers. Although it makes little sense that the only unarmed Nigerians are the defenceless innocent law abiding citizens, caution must be exercised in the proliferation of arms and more careful consideration given to alternative means of preventing violent criminality.

The brutal manner in which Nigerians deal with suspected thieves indicates a deficit in the emotional maturity and temper control required to bear firearms. Nothing is more dangerous than uncontrolled righteous violence employed by well-meaning people! In the process of fighting the monsters who have invaded our society we must ensure that we ourselves don’t become monsters.

The explanation for the inadequate security on the Kaduna and Abuja train service leading to the latest atrocity is a sordid tale. In summary, government was in a hurry to receive acclaim from the photogenic publicity of commissioning over-priced diesel trains rather than take time to put in place an efficient system with adequate security architecture. Fully five years after the commissioning with excessive pomp and pageantry, nothing tangible has been done to secure the line. Government wasn’t considering the necessity to protect lives, but rather who would get the contract and for how much!

As 2023 elections approach there are those encouraging Nigerians to boycott the polls if the security situation doesn’t improve. They should be discountenanced. Although admittedly time is running out and patience wearing thin, elections must hold and this administration must not spend one minute in office longer than their constitutionally guaranteed term. When they have left office Nigerians will be owed apologies by those under whose watch they were slaughtered on a daily basis; those who held political office bedevilled by controversy and poor performance, those who marginalized wide sections of the nation in defiance of the federal character principle and those who continued to loot. As for the “Comical Ali” government spokespersons, Nigerians are tired of being told insecurity is reducing while seeing multiple corpses of their slain gallant soldiers and policemen. It’s long past time when they should start telling the truth, stop blaming others, accept their shortcomings and understand that good governance isn’t about rationalizing failure.