Taiwo Jimoh and Ebube Eruchalu
Nigeria will today roll out drums to mark its 61st Independence Anniversary. Sadly, this celebration will be done amidst strangulating insecurity and the realisation that Nigeria has never be more divided than it is today.
Since Nigeria got its independent, the country has
been faced with myriad of security challenges. Today, however, the insecurity
in the nation is simply gut-wrenching. Insecurity challenges recorded
post-independence appears to be child’s play compared to what is happening in present
day Nigeria.
Today in Nigeria, either a mother is crying for her
abducted or murdered child, or a child is crying for his or her abducted or
murdered mother. More men have been buried in the last 10 years in Nigeria than
ever witnessed in some civil wars.
Nigeria is battling with an unprecedented wave of
security concerns, ranging from kidnapping to insurgencies, farmers/ herders
clashes, banditry, Niger Delta militants, cyber fraud, child trafficking, separatists agitations, drug
trafficking and armed robbery, to mention but a few. Most parts of the country
have been taken over by one violent crime or another.
A security expert, Mr. Ibrahim Adekunle, said that
the rate of crime in the 60s was not comparable to what is happening in present
day Nigeria, stressing that there had been a massive increase.
Adekunle said the scale of the insecurity in Nigeria
was threatening the very fabric of the nation. He also said that with every
attack, lives are being lost, while people are being maimed. According to him, Nigerians
have lost faith in the government.
He added: “When Buhari was elected in 2015, he
promised to protect citizens from terrorists and criminals. But with two years
left of his final term in office, the country is more unstable than it’s been
in decades. I can link the recent surge of insecurity in the country to poverty
across the country. The country is in
the middle of one of the worst economic downturns in years. That was what
pushed some youths into cyber fraud, child trafficking and drug trafficking.
They want to survive at all cost.”
Adekunle recalled that while growing up in the 70s,
his parents never locked their doors, and people walked around communities without
fear.
He further said: “During his first year in office,
Buhari said the Islamist militant group has been ‘technically’ defeated; the
truth is that Boko Haram insurgency is expanding into new areas, and taking
advantage of Nigeria's poverty to lure youths into the group.”
Adekunle noted that conflicts with Boko Haram insurgents
have led to the deaths of at least 350,000 people, and caused thousands, if not
million, to become displaced.
He added: “The only way out of this security
challenge is through good policy formulation and political will to do the
needful. The government also needs to inject young and intelligent officers
into the various security agencies in the country.”
One of the security challenges that had been
bedeviling the country, which has continued to gathered momentum is mass
abductions of schoolchildren for ransom. These kidnappers have raided villages,
kidnap civilians and burn down houses at will without being challenged.
Many now see kidnapping as a lucrative business,
which is beyond the control of security agencies. The insecurity in Nigeria has
become a real threat, affecting trade, education, agriculture and foreign
investors.
A former commissioner of police, Frank Odita, said:
“In 1960, Nigeria was just becoming an independent nation from the colonial
masters. Everything we did then was what
the British colonial masters taught us. In the area of security, compared to
present day Nigeria, the population of the country was not as large as it is
now. In 1960, we had only three regions in the country- North, East and West-
and Nigeria was practicing real democracy then, where the premier of each
regions were powerful, and they were the ones running the country’s affairs.
They also had control of the resources in their state and only contributed to
the central government. However, after the coup and counter-coup in 1966, the federal
government took all the powers, and most powers exercised by the premiers where
brought to the center. Before, it was the state that had more power.”
Odita said that the creation of more states meant
more responsibilities. “But now, whatever resources came into the country are
shared by the 36 states, 36 assemblies, 36 governors and their deputies,” said
Odita.
He noted: “Petroleum products later became the main
product of Nigeria, and because of that, agriculture, which used to be the backbone
of Nigeria's economy suffered neglect. As we were growing in population, we
were not growing in resources and everyone was depending on oil for survival. It
became clear that the resources cannot carry the responsibilities of a
developing country like ours.”
He said that by 1960 before the coup, graduates from
universities got automatic employments. “But now, there are fewer jobs, plenty
of graduates, and those who are unemployed will adopt the initiative of ‘use what
you have to get what you want,’ which means going into crime. Crime is what has
brought us to where we are today as a nation. This is because when you have too
many idle hands in a country, then the devil's workshop is at play,” said
Odita.
He said that the way out, “is what the government is
trying to do now; going back to the farms! Diversification of the economy is
the only way out, and our institutions of learning should not be producing
graduates only ready to do white collar jobs. They should be producing graduates
that are professionals. If the government cannot employ them, then they can
employ themselves. That is what the government is doing now, but the government
is also financially handicapped. All the government can do now is to see how
best every Nigerian can contribute to the economy.”
A security analyst, Mr. Ben Okezie, said that in
most third world countries, 95 percent of their security challenges were managed,
but in Nigeria, the reverse was the case.
He stated: “In Nigeria there is always one issue or
another; if it’s not traditional, ethnic, or religious, it will be political.
There’s always one problem or another confronting us a nation. It’s like our
security agencies are not getting it right. When we don't have a leader that
does the right thing, that’s weak, then you'll see all these security
challenges.”
Okezie explained that the use of thugs during
elections, equipping them with illegal arms, also boils down to the chaotic
situation in the country.
He said: “There’s fear in the land and whenever the
atmosphere looks a bit calm, something will pop up from nowhere. Unfortunately,
leaders, who are able to manage those security situations either in the
security agencies or politically, eventually gets removed from their positions,
to rot away with all their knowledge and expertise. The new people that come in
may not have the required experiences because their appointments may be due to
ethnic, political or religious conditions.”
He continued: “Now things are getting worse. When
you have someone that came in with genuine mandate and knows what he is doing,
we will not have all these security issues we are contending with today. Most
of the crimes that led to the insecurity in Nigeria are still there, and have
not been checked. Unavailability of jobs is the cause of all these problems.”
Okezie, who opined that the Nigerian economy was in
a shamble, stated that none of the governors has created jobs to absorb
unemployed youths.
He said: “None of them is thinking of setting up
industries, factories or mechanised farming, which will provide jobs. All of
them are just collecting money and spending it!”
A former Assistant Director of the Department of State
Services (DSS), Mr. Dennis Amachree, said Nigeria has come a long way security-wise
from 1960 to 2021. He said that in the 60s, Nigerians were honest and less
aggressive. People respected the police, and deviants were locked down.
Amachree further said: “As a boy, I remembered that bottles
of palm wine were left along bush paths, people drank and dropped money. There were
other money left by others and nobody stole them. Doors were always opened.
There were no perimeter fences or windows with iron bars. You can travel at
night from one region to another without fear of kidnappers or robbers. But
today, every one of us is living in self-imposed prisons, with multiple locks.
Greed and avarice have fueled high wired corruption in our national life.
Crimes that were non-existent before are now part of everyday Nigeria.
Terrorism, ethnic and racial animosities, kidnapping and cut-throat politics
rule the day. After 61 years of independence, things have gone from good to
worst. The country is at crossroads and
face an existential threat. Something must be done before it's too late.”
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