Lekan Sote
Where there is absence of governance, or the impact of government is not felt, you have a situation that political theorists describe as a state of anarchy and insecurity, as currently obtains in most of Nigeria.
Nigeria is fast becoming a space where governance is missing, especially in the aspect of security, which is Job Number One of any government. Nigeria has become a killing field and it’s not looking as if there is going to be a respite soon.
The situation has got so dire that His Eminence, Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar of Sokoto, a retired Brigadier-General of the Nigerian Army, raised an alarm about the state of insecurity in most parts of his traditional domain.
While the Sultan reports that armed bandits go from house to house extorting money from residents of the North-West, the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria reports that Boko Haram insurgents go about exacting fees from citizens of Northeastern Nigeria.
No one can fault the concern of the Sultan, even though it is worrisome that he and others, including Prof Usman Yusuf, former Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Health Insurance Scheme, appear to be looking elsewhere for the cause of insecurity in Northern Nigeria.
One would have thought that the Sultan and other concerned Northern Nigerian leaders should not have blamed the increased tempo of insecurity in the North to the failure of the Southern press to give enough coverage to stories about insecurity in the North. The press can only mirror of what obtains in society.
For the records, Journalists Hangout, a talk show of Lagos-based Television Continental, where this writer is a regular participant, discusses Northern Nigerian security situation on nearly all its episodes that run from Monday through Friday of every week.
The Northern Elders Forum that is calling for the resignation of the President may be missing the point too. The Northern Nigerian political establishment may need to take an introspective approach to the problem with a view to letting the charity of blame begin from Northern government houses.
The reality of Boko Haram insurgency in North-East Nigeria, bandits in the North-West, rampaging herdsmen in the Middle Belt, ritualists in the South-West, and kidnappers in the South-East and South-South Nigeria, spreads the federal security apparatus quite thin.
It is important to put a question to the Northern Nigerian political establishment, namely, would they support local security initiatives, like the Amotekun of South-West Nigeria, to significantly augment the efforts of the obviously inadequate federal security agencies?
It is necessary to point out at this stage that if the intention of Governor Baba Gana Zulum of Borno State and the other Northeastern governors is to suggest the use of mercenaries to quell the insurgency and then return Nigeria to the overcentralised status quo, things will likely unravel again.
The problem is not only in the occurrence of these problems, but also in the patent inability of government to swiftly contain the excesses of the criminals. To borrow a phrase from the military, government is missing in action.
When some Northern governors, like Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, calmly explain that they negotiate and pay bandits because the security agencies cannot adequately protect the lives of citizens, you are reminded of the way the mafia is paid protection fees by scared victims in some other climes.
The hiring of mercenaries to prosecute the war against insurgency is not an entirely new development. The government of former President Goodluck Jonathan reportedly brought mercenaries to fight against the Boko Haram insurgents.
Though the Jonathan government seemed to have denied it at that time, rumours making the rounds that the mercenaries may not take up the offer a second time, confirm that the government indeed hired the mercenaries.
The denial may have been occasioned by the disapproval of mercenaries by the United Nations and the implications that the Nigerian military is not up to stuff.
Outsourcing the prosecution of the war against insurgency is actually an indictment on the Nigerian military that is (wrongly?) accused of leaking strategic information, and losing arms and ammunition, to the insurgents.
There is no doubt that the current inventory of security agents, agencies and architecture cannot check the spread of insecurity across Nigeria, and the call for the President to allow the current team of security chiefs to let go, may not be quite out of place.
Maybe, members of the Northern Nigeria political establishment, who think there must be something sinister in calls for amendment to Section 214(1) of Nigeria’s Constitution which provides that “no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof,” should do a rethink.
Somebody, obviously in a moment of epiphany or eureka, has argued that there is no army or force that will be able to stand in the way of an idea whose time has come.
The Northern Nigeria political establishment should take a cue from the Japanese general who saw a parade marching and positioned himself at its head, to look as if he was leading the parade.
In any case, the Civilian Joint Task Force, a volunteer militia that is assisting in maintaining security in Northeast Nigeria, has spoken –candidly– that those who will police a community effectively will likely come from within such communities.
And as long as the Northern Nigeria political establishment dodges discussions of restructuring, so will some of these problems persist.
After Prof Yusuf, who made a passionate case for attention to be paid to insecurity in the nation, was asked what he thought about restructuring, he parried it.
He went into so much labour of circumlocution just because he didn’t want to acknowledge that the solution to the problem he had been identifying could be in the devolution of powers and fiscal federalism that would empower the impoverished and effected states.
It was the same intellectual gymnastics that Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, Director of Publicity and Advocacy of Northern Elders’ Forum, and Buba Galadima, a former presidential friend and National Secretary of defunct Congress of Progressive Change, displayed when confronted with the same question.
This posturing puts Nasir el-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State, who has been arguing for restructuring and state policing, in the lonely crowd of Northern political elites, like Muhammad Sanusi II, former Emir of Kano.
Anyway, it’s good news that Yusuf endorses state policing. The only question to ask is if it will not amount to class suicide if he will try to convince his fellow members of the Northern Nigeria political establishment to accept the idea.
There is no doubt that the central government is taking on too many things, and it is failing woefully on all the fronts. Someone says no individual can be “four man.” He can’t do the job of four men, if you catch the drift of the pun.
It is time for the Northern Nigerian political establishment to come to terms with the reality of the situation, and adopt the sure way to end the inequity and violence that is causing general insecurity throughout the nation.
Why would anyone insist on getting 100 per cent of zero, whereas you can get what is equitably yours without lapsing into poverty? Anyone who insists on winning all the time is unrealistic, and may soon find himself all alone.
Twitter @lekansote1
