Now, I am celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary with mixed feelings due to the sorrow and heaviness of my heart because of the insecure situation in our country, Nigeria.
Speaking while weeping from the City of New York, United States of America, where I am currently attending the New York 2022 International Forensic Conference, with the theme: The role of digital forensics in attaining sustainable growth and development in a data-driven economy. I have been away for the past three weeks for one conference and the other. I am inclined to speak on the rising spate of insecurity in Nigeria. My position on this subject matter is predicated on the fact that I am a concerned and patriotic citizen of this country, who is of the firm notion that the government and all stakeholders as well as believers in the Nigerian project, should rise up to the occasion with a view to addressing the root cause of the state of insecurity in the country. This is necessary because the security of this nation is the collective responsibility of all of us and all hands must be on deck to ensure that no stone is left unturned in our efforts to nip in the bud, this hydra-headed monster called insecurity before it engulfs us all.
For about two decades now the country has been plagued with incessant crises of insecurity with the advent of insurgency, which wrecked a lot of havoc in the country through wanton killings of innocent Nigerians when the Boko Haram went on a rampage in the North East and other parts of the country to carry out their nefarious and dastardly acts.
Also of great concern is the widespread kidnapping and abduction for ransom, which has gained traction in recent times. This ugly scenario has been further exacerbated to the point that miscreants are now seeing it as a lucrative business and means of livelihood. Another disheartening development is the operations of bandits whose stock-in-trade are embedded in incessant kidnapping and cattle rustling, among other vices. My heart bleeds when I heard about what happened to those who travelled by train to Kaduna about a week ago. That singular occurrence has shown clearly that Nigerians are no longer safe, whether they travel by road or train.
All these ugly developments have thrown the country into an unimaginable chaotic situation and the Nigerian citizens who have been further impoverished by inexplicable and inexpiable fraud, corruption, injustice, religious sentiments and ethnic bigotry, are at the receiving end. The prevalence of these societal ills has resulted in extreme poverty, job losses and unemployment, and a lack of basic infrastructure.
Unarguably, we are where we are today because fraud and corruption have become so prevalent and had eaten deep into the fabric of our nation. As such, there is a need to fight this menace for us to have the Nigeria of our dreams because we cannot tackle insecurity without the attainment of macroeconomic goals, which are the panacea for socio-economic development of the country, which fraud, cybercrimes and corruption have distorted.
On daily basis, Nigerians suffer from a myriad of deprivations, where those from less privileged homes are relegated to the background. This is because we are in a society where godfatherism is exploited to the detriment of the poor who remain in perpetual suffering with no hope of survival. Employment is no longer based on merits but on “who you know” and the gap between the rich and the poor has widened beyond proportion.
On the other way round, even when the government decides to employ these youths, it becomes difficult due to a lack of money in the treasury to service the employment because of the greediness of some few individuals who have decided to loot the government treasury to their private pockets, leaving the less privileged one to their fate. There are thousands of brilliants youths who have already analyzed the current situation of the Nigerian economy and read the writing on the wall and have concluded that even the future of their children and grandchildren yet unborn has already been mortgaged, let alone theirs with their present predicaments. This has thrown up unimaginable frustration as well as created idleness amongst our teeming youths who are now becoming restive, justifying the adage that says “an idle mind is a devil’s workshop”. Invariably, these are some of the factors responsible for the current state of insecurity in the country.
Therefore, if we must address all these complexities and all associated challenges frontally, we must go to the drawing board to address the root cause of all these problems, which in my humble view is traceable to widespread fraud and corruption in the country, where our national treasury is being looted without recourse to the wellbeing of the nation.
As a country, we must look outside the box to ensure that things are done differently for us to get the desired result, as the old ways have failed us. Doing the same thing, the same way all the time and expecting a different result, is tantamount to a lack of innovations and in-depth understanding of global dynamics.
On this note, I make bold to state that forensic investigation is one of the answers that can address this great problem, which has bedevilled our nation. As such, the passage of the Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Professionals of Nigeria (CIFIPN) Bill, which scaled through all legislative processes in the National Assembly and is now before Mr President for Presidential Assent, should be accorded the required attention it deserves devoid of sentiment, in the best interest of this country.
The Bill to establish the Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Professionals of Nigeria has spent almost nine years between National Assembly and Presidency in search of legal backing, yet assent is yet to be given, even the Bill has been passed into law twice. I, therefore, humbly use this medium to appeal to Mr President to fast-track the signing into law of the said Bill, to enable us to join hands with the rest of Nigerians to build our nation because the forensic investigation is the answer to modern-day criminality, as all paraphernalia for the detection, investigation of fraud, corruption and cybercrime as well as prevention of same, are all embedded in forensic science and technological tools.
May God help Nigeria to come out of its present predicament.
By Dr Enape Victoria Ayishetu, Ph.D
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