Slowly but surely, insecurity of lives and property is becoming the new normal of Nigerian social life. On top of the galloping inflation translating into the ever-increasing price of foodstuffs, Nigerians confront in their daily lives another source of suffering, uncertainty and tragedy, namely: insecurity. Like a plague that will not go away, the daily flow of news is not complete without heartbreaking information about the number of lives lost or wounded in the surging incidences of insecurity in the shape of banditry, insurgency, kidnappings for ransom, targeting of schools and universities, among others.
One of the most recent occurrences is in the Jos area where at least 20 passengers travelling between Bauchi and Ikare in Ondo State were killed by a mob proceeding on a burial procession on behalf of some victims of insecurity. Considering the religious undertone of the killings, the Jos North area of Plateau State has been under a curfew since Saturday in order to prevent the contagion of bloodletting. Despite the curfew, deaths from rioters or those engaging in reprisals have continued while 11 people lost their lives earlier this week in the Dansadau Emirate of Zamfara State. That is not all. In the same state of Zamfara, 40 people were abducted while another 10 students in a separate circumstance were kidnapped in Katsina State. Given that not all the abductions and killings are reported, the daily toll of casualties may well be higher than media accounts of them.
It is encouraging to an extent that security institutions are combating the phenomenon around the country, giving hope now and then that the battle may eventually be won. For now, however, it would appear that they are being overwhelmed despite twists and turns in the struggle which include, for example, the surrender of some Boko Haram soldiers in the North-East recently. There are ugly features that have become endemic in the Nigerian life and occur as regularly as the harmattan haze in December. One of them, perhaps the most conspicuous, is public sector corruption which in spite of a voluble anti-corruption war continues to thrive. How do you explain, for example, the recent revelation by the Auditor-General of the Federation, Adolphus Aghughu, in the course of delivering the 2019 Auditor’s Report that N4.97tn is unaccounted for by Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government in the midst of an anti-corruption war? Needless to add that year after year, the Auditor-General issues queries to our institutions most of which go unanswered. So, that office scandalously under-resourced has been reduced to an office whose primary function is to issue queries which are usually ostentatiously ignored with the office beginning to look like the famous “ero asoromagbesi” (the machine that talks without getting replies).
What is going on now is that just as corruption has become endemic because of a lack of national will to fight it, insecurity is also becoming another more devastating aspect of the Nigerian life with official response unavailing.
One sad paradox about insecurity is that it appears to be growing in proportion to the dramatic markup in expenditure on defence institutions and arms. In the past seven years, it is estimated by the Global Terrorism Index that the country has spent over N8tn to boost its defence capability and the purchase of hardware and software. Each year, there is a bulge in what is spent to allegedly bolster our firepower so that we can better combat the rising scourge of insecurity. In 2018, for example, out of a budget of N9.12tn, security institutions consumed N1.35tn. In 2019, the figure rose to N1.4tn out of a budget of N10.59tn while in 2020, the defence budget climbed upwards to N1.8tn out of a total budget about the same as that of 2019.
Recently, we were told by the health ministry in the wake of the ongoing strike by resident doctors that there is a difference between money appropriated and money released for disbursement. As the Minister for Finance, Zainab Ahmed, testified before the Senate recently, all monies earmarked for defence in the last couple of years had been fully disbursed and completely cash-backed. In other words, in contrast to health, defence enjoys a special exemption to have had its own allocation speedily released so that the security institutions can better prosecute and win the fight against increasing and enlarging insecurity.
Illustratively, while Nigeria has become one of the biggest spenders on defence on the continent next to South Africa, it continues to rank very low on the Global Peace Index which in its latest report released this year ranked it as number 146 out of 163 countries in terms of peace. This pinpoints the paradox in the climbing upwards of defence spending, and the output of a poorly policed, poorly kept public realm becoming in some places a bandits’ republic and killing field.
The question to ask, nonetheless, is how to reconcile mounting spending on security with the acceleration of cases of attacks by bandits, kidnappers and the like. The same situation obtained during the President Goodluck Jonathan administration when remarkable bulges in the allocation to defence and security did not match the performance of institutions connected with security. It took the hiring of mercenaries to bring the North-East, transiently, to a state where elections could be held.
It is a strange puzzle that we have come full circle since the hoopla over this contradiction under Jonathan. The result is that insecurity, rather than relative tranquility, is becoming the order of the day with apparently no end in sight as Nigerian citizens who can afford it vote with their feet by emigrating abroad, bolster their private defences or commonsensically avoid turbulent areas where insecurity has flared past the danger mark.
For instance, many of our lawmakers have openly said that they dare not go to their villages where they will become sitting ducks. If insecurity takes further roots than it has already done, it will obviously foreclose the space for development already narrowed by recurrent pandemics and the inability of many farmers to carry out their duties for fear of being abducted. It is not just that alone; our debt crisis will deepen further since insecurity provides ready excuse for a borrowing spree on the pretext that the never-ending war must be won at any and every cost.
To avert this dreadful scenario, there must be a way of monitoring transparency regarding monies allocated to shore up military and policing prowess. It is not enough to appropriate funds for projects; equally important is to plug the holes and leaking pots so that these projects, however justifiable, do not become bottomless pits that will continuously impoverish Nigerians. As part of the anti-corruption agenda, it should be possible to institute reforms that will put an end to or whittle down the unhappy paradox between swelling security sector spending and the continuous frightening occurrences of insecurity. After all, the most fundamental reason for the existence of governments is their mandate to lift men and women above the Hobbesian state of nature.
