New Telegraph

Governors’ frustration over worsening insecurity

In view of its pivotal role in national development, BIYI ADEGOROYE writes that internal security should be tackled head-on, instead of current efforts at politicising it

Besides the coronavirus pandemic currently making mincemeat of people globally and its concomitant effects on the economy and social lives, rampaging insecurity comes across as the major problem now shaking the country to its foundation.

At a time when ethnic and religious clashes have taken the back seat following the apparently resolve of the nation’s over 250 tribes to cohabit peacefully, internal security issues like kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery insurgency and trans-national terrorism have concertedly worsened the woes of the nation.

The distressing level of insecurity has caught the intervention of many prominent Nigerians, like the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Mohammed Saad Abubakar III, the Catholic Arch-Bishop of Sokoto, Dr. Hassah Kukah, who wanted urgent action to prevent Nigeria from sliding into the realms of failed state. To the Sultan said: “People leave foodstuff in their houses for bandits.

There is a need for urgent action through actionable engagement, as the security situation in northern Nigeria has assumed a worrisome dimension. “A few weeks ago, over 76 persons were killed in a community in Sokoto in a day.

I was there alongside the governor to commiserate with the affected community. Unfortunately, you don’t hear these stories in the media because it’s in the North. We have accepted the fact that the North doesn’t have strong media to report the atrocities of these bandits.

“People think the North is safe, but that assumption is not true. In fact, it’s the worst place to be in this country. Bandits go around villages, households, and markets with AK47 rifles and nobody is challenging them. They stop at the market, buy things, pay and collect change, with their weapons openly displayed.

These are facts I know because I am at the centre of it. I am not only a traditional ruler; I am also a religious leader… “We have to sincerely and seriously find solutions to the problem; otherwise, we will find ourselves soon, in a situation where we will be losing sleep over insecurity. As religious leaders, we must promote peace, love, unity, and tolerance among our followers… “ On his part, Rev. Father Kukah said: “Ours has become a house of horror, with fear stalking our homes, highways, cities, hamlets and entire communities… Ours has become a nation wrapped in desolation.

The prospects of a failed state stares us in the face with endless bloodletting, a collapsing economy, social anomie, domestic and community violence, kidnappings and armed robberies, among others.”

Arguably, Christmas Day bombing, capturing of entire local governments, occupation and hoisting insurgents’ flags on some communities on the Nigerian common some years ago are now a rarity. The activation of the current genres of attacks by the insurrectionists represents novel tactics in their relentless efforts to undermine the state. These gruelling attacks have left their impacts on agriculture even thousands of peoples have been forced out of their ancestral homes into camps for Internally Displaced Persons camps.

These beleaguered and tattered IDP (IDPs) clutched their innocent children in their hands, ignorant of the future and their wards alike. As regards abduction, the kidnappers and terrorists seem to excel by targetting huge populations of largely unprotected pupils in their schools, following the feat with the 276 Chibok Schoolgirls in 2014, the 110 Dapchy Schoolgirls in 2018, and more recently with haul of over 344 Kankara Boys.

Similarly, besides the fact that the North-East and North-West North,have become theatres of war where terrorists and bandits alike ply criminality, almost with unfettered ferocity, the North Central, seemed to have combated its inflammatory and divisive ethno-religious crises, but is now in the jaws of banditry. With lessons of the attacks still unlearnt which precipitate re-occurrence, abduction and murder of royal fathers have become the vogue in some parts of the South-West and the South-East, abduction have become the forte of the criminals, who haul millions of naira in ransom as crime proceeds.

First was on January 15, 2020 when the Emir of Potiskum, Umar Buharam was attacked around 11pm in Maraban Jos, in Kaduna State. About 10 persons were murdered and dozens others kidnapped. The ferocious attack on Alhaji Sanusi Asha, the Emir of Kaura Namoda’s convoy, culminating in the callous massacre of three policemen and several civilians, and the assassination in an ambush last October of the Olufon of Ifon, in Ondo State, Oba Israel Adeusi by the bandits remain tell-tale signs of the criminals’ resilience.

Ironically, state governors, who neither have operational control over the armed forces nor the police have become cynosure of the eyes, following daily lament their helplessness. Not even the provision of operational vehicles for the police in their respective states or the setting up of state security outfits has assuaged the pains of the people.

Zulum’s worries

Though Zamfara State has reportedly recorded over 2,500 deaths in the hands of bandits in the last 10 years, Borno State is unrivaled regarding perennial terrorist attacks which have seemingly defied solution. From the Governor Babagana Zulu’s three near-death encounters with Boko Haram, exceeding the two suffered by his predecessor in which about 10 persons were killed to the Zabamari massacre of about 70 rice farmers, terrorist attacks in the state hardly make headlines anymore.

Rather, besides chiding the armed forces and police for not doing enough, Zulum does more of paying condolences and ensure damages payment to widow and dependents of victims of Boko Haram attacks and motivating civilian joint task force.

Bello’s anguish

Following cases of kidnapping, cattle rustling and banditry in Benue, Niger, Taraba, Nassarawa states, the North Central States Governor’s Forum recently met and appealed to the Federal Government to support the zone in its ongoing digital technology project(s) and other security preventive measures so as to fight all forms of criminality. Over 50 people, including Zakariyau Idris, were allegedly killed in Madaka village in Niger State on Christmas day, when kidnappers, numbering about 24 stormed the area.

Earlier about 17 others were slaughtered in Dukku village in Rijau Local Government Area during a siege by about 120 gunmen. Accordingly, the North Central Governors’ Forum also stressed the need for the Federal Government to establish military camps or training grounds in forests zone in the area to block movement of the hoodlums.

The military units, which they said should be infantry heavy with adequate support weapons and elements of armoured units (Track Armour Vehicles/Armoured Personnel Carrier), will be necessary.

The Forum stressed the need for the Nigeria Police Force to synergize with the state governments in the recruitment and training of community police for the provision of adequate security at grassroots level.

The Forum also identified the need to restore involvement of traditional and community leaders in intelligence gathering and sharing in order to assist security agencies in fighting the insecurity in the zone.

Other decision reached at the meeting include: The need to share intelligence amongst members states and create multi-layer intelligence gathering; the need states to partner with Federal Government agencies, such as Immigration and Customs Services to track the proliferation of light and small weapons.

The Forum appreciated the efforts of security agencies in tackling the issues of insecurity in the zone and urged them not to relent and also resolved that states should enact unified laws to deal with Almajiri phenomenon. In the area of agriculture, the states of the zone moved to request the services of agrorangers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps to provide security to farmers/ farming activities.

Fayemi’s tears

Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Dr. Kayode Fayemi, carries the burden of his colleagues on his shoulders. The governor of Ekiti State, known for his background in strategic studies said the military is overwhelmed in handling Nigeria’s security challenges.

Remonstrating over the killings in the land during his condolence visit to Governor Zulum, after Boko Haram attacks, Fayemi, along with some governors, wants efforts to tackle insecurity must involve local communities.

“It was a massacre and it was one that none of us could come to terms easily…The reality we can all say, and I personally as security scholar, the reality I can see is that our military is overwhelmed. Our military is no longer in a position to single-handedly tackle this menace effectively.

“It is not a criticism of our military, if one were to suggest a coalition beyond that will even include our neighbouring countries, who are probably more experienced in fighting an asymmetrical war. It will not be a loss of our pride as a country,” Fayemi said as part of the governors’ “expression of our own frustration.

“We can’t bring back the people we have lost in the last couple of days, but if we do not take the necessary steps the entire nation will be consumed by this insurgency,” he said. But while opinions are divergent on the capability of the military to end the fight, adequacy of funding and weapons, other have blamed it on failure of intelligence, insincerity and failure to utilize to the maximum information garnered from former Boko Haram members granted amnesty. For instance, “what is the source of the weapons uitlised by Boko Haram and the bandits?

Why has it been nearly impossible to block their weapon supply? Who supplies the Hillux vehicles and motor-cycles utlised by the terrorist? What intelligence has the military obtained from terrorists’ food and fuel supplier arrested a couple of months ago and to what extent have these enhanced military operation? To Ambassador Joe Keshi, a former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the problem might not lie in the alleged incompetence of the Service Chiefs, quoting former Prime Minister of Britain Winston Churchill, he said, war is too great a business to be left to generals alone.

“We all have this fixation of ‘sacking the Service Chiefs,’ that might be a solution, but the military has fundamental problems that must be looked into – the problem of leadership, the problem of motivation, the problem of capacity and proper management of its resources and the problem of capability especially its inability to develop its own capability and consistently depending on weapons thus helping to deplete our reserves,” he said. Alluding to allegation of low defence budget, he said: “The military believes in spending money on importation of all weapons and not doing enough to create that military industrial complex that a country like Nigeria requires. Simply put, the Nigerian military, just like the police, needs to be seriously reformed both in structure, content attitude and operational strategies. “I find it funny when the Nigerian military says the Boko Haram groups it is fighting in Bornu State are not conventional forces, what an excuse? For goodness’ sake, who the hell did they fight in Liberia and Sierra Leone? They fought rag-tag groups for 10 years. So they should have built on their experience to fight the insurgents in Borno State.”

On the complaints about paucity of war planes from the US, Keshi said the military need to go beyond bombing from the air. “They need to occupy and take possession of those towns and villages. What we need are attack helicopters, lots of them, with which we can pick these rascals from their location, rather than bombing a place, leaving it and these people will return to reoccupy it.” According to him, the first obligation of government is security, the protection of lives and property and if a government cannot do that or even attempt, it is not worthy to be called a government.

On his party, Security expert,qw Dr. Ona Ekhomu called for concerted efforts to address the security problems adding that government alone cannot stop it. Kidnapping, in his words, has become common currency in the North-West, the security agents are no longer committed to “hot pursuit” or “fresh pursuit”.

Ekhomu said that the attack of schools in the North were foreseeable and preventable, adding that the Katsina State Government and the school authorities were negligent by not conducting risk assessments that would have enabled them predict the school attack and mass kidnap event.

Said he: “School authorities stand as surrogates of parents to the students; the authorities have a duty to anticipate security threats and take steps to mitigate them so that students are not harmed by malevolent actors such as armed bandits.” He warned that more school attacks should be expected in the North-West states. On attacks on traditional rulers, he wants security measures strengthened around first class traditional rulers in order to safeguard them against repeated efforts at kidnap or assassination by terrorist-bandits. “Further to this threat definition, we should then put robust measures in place to protect royal convoys. There is need for the training and retraining of royal drivers on offensive and defensive driving skills and for training in ramming techniques off road recovery, ambush detection, bootleg turn, J-turn, twopoint turn and other evasive driving skills.

“The next line of defence should be the training of the first class monarchs on security awareness which will engender protective attitudes in the monarchs as a successful attack against any them would embarrass the government. Awareness training should include risk assessments, transit security, ransom kidnap, surveillance and countersurveillance techniques, among other skills.” He advised royal fathers to avoid late night journeys, and they should sound siren while traveling through dangerous stretches of roadway, adding that members of the family of first class traditional rulers should receive security awareness training in order to turn them into soft targets. Rather living a self-denial, the nation has an elephant in the room – terrorism and banditry- the challenge to internal security, one of the promises on which the current government rode to power. Unfortunately, it has now become a threat to national cohesion.

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