COUNTERPOINT
BY Femi Akintunde-Johnson
It is clear to almost all Nigerians that 2020 is shaping up to be a pivotal year – a period of mounting spectacle of heartless insecurity, brutal domestic disputes and increasing agitation of helpless citizens poking holes in the efforts of government and the nation’s security apparatus to combat and neutralize the encroaching waves of unrest and destabilizing forces.
Sadly, our government people still believe in applying acne ointment on sores occasioned by mid-toned leprosy. Recently, the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, as quoted by his media aide, Laolu Akande, told a delegation of “Arewa Pastors Forum for Peace” (a worried collective of clergymen from the Northern part of Nigeria) who visited the Presidential Villa in search of cogent answers to the current anxiety, that there is some serious plan to recruit more troops and officers to ramp up the personnel of security agencies.
Obviously, that tactic has failed us time and again. The nation has slept so long at its watch that merely throwing more men and arms at the cankerworm of kidnappings, armed robberies, car-jarkings, assassinations, cultism, gang killings, etc, will hardly scratch the surface of vastly wide, deliberate, wanton and often brutal manifestations of a deeper cancer. A cancer that has matured with years of neglect, political irresponsibility, corrosive corruption, legislative over-reach, executive recklessness, and such blatantly insensitive displays of unconscious greed and shameless acquisitions.
Among other remedial actions, the government must jack up its economic palliatives for the benefits of the ordinary folks who are chased around the urban centres for littering the highways, sidewalks and other illegal spaces with their petty articles in search of survival and provision. The government must think out of the box to positively animate the huge army of Nigerian youth (the usual candy that fuels insecurity when unemployment or unemployability is high) in a way that entrepreneurship programmes are far more easily accessible, clearly realisable and massively spread across all states of the country. It is critical that all states and the federal government work seamlessly together to deliver this urgent intervention, for the sake of our future peaceful existence.
It is too late and too dangerous to play politics with any idea that interfaces with curbing youth unemployment. We cannot fiddle with this demographics as we did with TraderMoni, and such ambivalent initiatives. We must douse the raging smokes of restless and sporadic expressions of urban rebellion and gangsterism before it rumbles into a catastrophic inferno.
Earlier this week, in response to the spiralling insecurity incidents, some Christian leaders, including Pastor Enoch Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, and the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN embarked on a “prayer protest walk”, while some engaged in “fasting protest”. These actions were reactions to series of devastating acts of unchallenged brigandage: a CAN leader in Adamawa State, Pastor Lawan Andimi, was beheaded by the mindless insurgents holding the North East by the jugular, despite the relentlessly and severe counter moves of our valiant security forces; the sporadic and frequent commando attacks on our highways across the nation which have felled many innocent Nigerians, and destroyed vehicles and other property; even the headstrong herdsmen are yet unsatisfied, as instances of farm destruction and physical mutilations and killings still persist; and the media continue to astound us daily with tales of woes and ghastly photographs.
Though government spokesmen try to dump down the symbolism of Adeboye and other Christian leaders taking to the streets in peaceful protest against unceasing insecurity, the signs are clear, and sadly dire. Beyond sophistry from talking heads and professional spin doctors, it is evident that the government must device people-centred, hydra-headed means of attacking the roots and shoots of our national and communal insecurity.
While micro-economic measures are comprehensively deployed, and backed by other supporting institutional frameworks, home-spurn anti-crime apparatus illustrated by the Operation Amotekun sponsored by the governments of the South West, should also be encouraged and empowered in other regions, to combat, frontally and variously, the enemies of our peace, unity and prosperity.
It is noteworthy that the pains of most Nigerians are somewhat felt by members of both chambers of our National Assembly who also this week lamented the poor state of the nation’s security and confessed that insecurity has now reached an alarming proportion. The lawmakers have vowed to pursue legislation of community policing in order to curb the nefarious activities of criminal elements. This is good news – when it moves beyond window-dressing. However, now that the legislators have woken up to the present danger that has been tormenting their constituents for many years, let us point it out to them – if by some stroke of selective ignorance – they are not aware that their conduct and intransigence since the advent of this fourth democratic dispensation have fed the beast now threatening to devour us all. In case they ask you “How?”: tell them that their obscene salaries and emoluments while working for less than a quarter of the number of days in a year that most government workers log. You cavort with corrupt or self-serving lobbyists, and take off on narrow-minded oversight binges while claiming unjustifiable allowances (or more precisely, extortions) from both the house and your so-called “clients” you are meant to “over-see”.
Yet another angle: though government spokesmen believe the recent call on the President to resign (on this same insecurity matter) by opposition voices do not represent the voices of the generality of Nigerians, it is clear to all discerning compatriots that there remains some air of hopelessness and dismay among the supervising elements of the government in the face of challenges posed by activities of criminal and destabilizing elements across our vast nation. This seeps to the people, and many are wondering if the leadership have what it takes to bring sanity and order to our highways, communities, farmlands, railways and waterways.
Late last month, President Muhammadu Buhari authorized the deployment of air power to support troops and policemen combating bandits, kidnappers, cattle rustlers in the forests of Kaduna, Niger and Zamfara States. According to media reports, the president gave the directive while describing the sundry attacks which resulted in deaths of innocent Nigerians as a “national disaster”. So, we know that the President has the same blood as all of us, including those slain by butchers around us, and he also suffers similar afflictions with us, let us quickly remind the Commander-in-Chief that the use of air bombardment while achieving, in the main, the desired objectives of eliminating undesirable elements, it is also obvious that more innocent Nigerians will suffer collateral damage as kidnappers, bandits and other “roaches” of these forests detain innocent people whom they use to extort ransoms. Indiscriminate bombardment, even the most delicate, will ultimately lead to more misery for many already beleaguered families. The security chiefs must find a more sophisticated and intelligence-driven way to wipe out these animals feasting on the innocents, without killing more innocents – the main objective of the wicked.
