The security situation in Nigeria is degenerating by the day. Even though there are top-level, medium-level and low-level security officials, the trend suggests that no one is actually in charge or at best, that the persons in charge have been overwhelmed and they are just pretending to still be in charge. The body count on the number of lives lost is numbing. This runs against the constitutional aphorism that the security and welfare of the people is the primary purpose of government. Why is aggravated insecurity still the order of the day? This discourse seeks to introduce some common sense in an area that security personnel usually claim unnecessary expertise. The experience of the last heavy security breach in Kuje Correctional Centre is used as a focal point.
It is imperative at the outset not to sound dismissive, and to acknowledge the heavy and sometimes ultimate sacrifice of our security personnel in service to the fatherland. Thousands of security personnel have lost their lives to keep us safe. But the management of the national security architecture has left so many questions unanswered and has contributed to the continued insecurity, emboldening terrorists and sundry criminals and portraying them as invincible in the mind of the public. The recent successful attack on the Kuje Correctional Centre raises so many unanswered questions.
There are media reports that the Department of State Services gathered intelligence and reported to the other security agencies about the impending attack on the correctional centre. Also, Tukur Mamu, publisher of the Desert Herald newspaper and aide to Ahmad Gumi, an Islamic cleric, stated that those behind the Kuje Facility attack are the same as the perpetrators of the Abuja-Kaduna train attack. He claimed to have pre-informed security operatives of the threat of an attack on the facility. All these categorical and emphatic assertions have not been denied by the security agencies. What is the purpose of having intelligence-gathering agencies and negotiators who have acted as a go-between for the authorities and the terrorists if the information they bring will be ignored? This is not the first time the DSS will be reported to have given intelligence on an impending attack and the other relevant security agencies ignored or failed to act on it. It will be recalled that the DSS also claimed to have given a briefing on the Owerri Correctional Centre before it was attacked and no one took action.
The second issue that challenges the thinking faculty of all reasonable persons is the report that over 300 terrorists on motorcycles with some walking down approached a correctional centre without the security men on duty noticing their advance until they came within a firing range. Can we have such a high-level security facility without an observatory where movements in the immediate neighbourhood of a few kilometres can be noticed and reported before the attackers advance further? If we had an observatory, what did the observers see and why did they not alert the authorities? If they alerted the authorities, why was action not taken? If there was none, does it require any high-level thinking to know that a correctional centre, where terrorists are housed, needs an observatory?
On the attack, media reports, pictures and accounts from the authorities did not show or indicate a heavy exchange of gunfire or other ammunition. To overpower soldiers and security officers guarding a correction centre implies that the attackers neutralised them. But there is no report in that direction. Did the security officials run away in the face of superior firepower or did they just display cowardice in the face of the enemy? Does it mean that trained and disciplined members of the Armed Forces were subdued by a ragtag army of “blood civilians”? This is incredible. What of reinforcement from other military formations in the Federal Capital Territory? The attack was reported to have lasted for as long as three hours. What is the distance between the nearest barracks and base of the Army, Air Force and Navy to the Kuje Correctional Centre? In these days of mobile phones and internet applications that ensure messages are sent and received in seconds or minutes, how long did it take for reinforcement and support to come?
If the proper security architectural framework had been in place, a helicopter gunship or other military aircraft should have been able to take out these terrorists before they attacked the centre. Alternatively, similar reinforcement during the attack would have ensured that the majority of them were neutralised. If reinforcement actually came during the pendency of the attack, how did the attackers and rescued terrorists and prisoners all escape into thin air? Maybe they are no longer humans but spirits! How can a correctional centre with such a high number of certified terrorists have little or no resilient security protection? Who is responsible for providing security but failed in the discharge of his functions?
What has been the response of the President and Commander-in-Chief? Another round of endless meetings with no discernible action but assuring and re-assuring Nigerians even when the advance convoy to his home town was shot at by terrorists. Meeting service chiefs who could not set up a response mechanism to engage this foretold and elementary attack will yield no results. Enforcing the law as the command of the sovereign, backed by sanctions will do. Setting up and enforcing accountability mechanisms will do the job. The legislature as the sovereign authority has set the ground rules and the law on terrorism. No one knows what the executive is waiting for in order to enforce the law. It doesn’t need to foot-drag while Nigerians are slaughtered. Again, why have these terrorists not been conclusively prosecuted after so many years in detention? The Federal executive owes Nigerians a lot of explanations.
There are many people to hold accountable and who need to clear themselves before the law. The officials who got intelligence from the DSS and refused to act on it constitute the first batch. The second group includes officials who should have set up an observatory and failed to do so or refused to activate the observatory or act on its alert. The third batch is about officials whose duty it was to alert other security formations if the correctional centre was overwhelmed, if they did not call for help and reinforcement in time. This batch should also include the security officials on duty if they abandoned their posts or if there is evidence to suggest they acted in cowardice which facilitated the ease with which the terrorists captured the centre. The fourth is the set of officials who had a duty to provide reinforcement – if they failed to do it timeously. They have questions to answer. The fifth batch of persons who have to provide explanations is based on the claim that the terrorists came with superior firepower. They are the officials in charge of public money provided in the budget over the years to buy arms and equipment. They should be called to give a blow-by-blow account of how they have invested public money.
In conclusion, public pressure should be put on the President and his security chiefs to do their job or in the alternative to throw in the towel. Human lives are at stake. The margin of error or elbow room for poor performance is not available.
