Democracy Blighted by Insecurity

Ahamefula Ogbu

Democracy has come to evoke the feelings of utopia, albeit almost falsely, at least in expectations of an Eldorado in the oraganisation of society for man to live in. That probably explains the frenzied acceptance of Nigerians who have the penchant to celebrate anything from tragedies to positively memorable events, of the much vaunted return to democracy which saw the khaki boys back to their dilapidated barracks.

However, events were too soon to take a sordid turn that transformed in human psyche and reality so that the khaki colour soon returned in deeper combat dressing of camouflage as regular police no longer could handle the morphed security problems which made the security forces to change from protecting territorial integrity of the country to internal security. The police, ill equipped and more ill-motivated had abdicated its duties; leaving in its wake, a lot of ungoverned spaces which were taken over by non-state actors who to maintain their relevance, had to resort to extreme violence.

Since the return to democratic rule in 1999, there have been pockets of violence either state-sponsored or criminally engendered. What tested the will of President Olusegun Obasanjo was restiveness in the Niger Delta which later morphed into militancy; a sobriquet of resource control pressure that saw host communities tackling both government and oil prospecting and exploration companies.

Often, casualties were on both sides but mostly policemen who were killed and their weapons stolen. That mixed with stealing of crude oil from facilities which were moved in barges and sold to waiting mother ship anchored a bit offshore or exchanged for weapons with which they not only plied their trades but superintended their territories. That went on till some soldiers and policemen were killed in Odi, Bayelsa State, and Obasanjo felt the red line had been crossed and the result was what has come to be known as Odi massacre of November 1999, few months into his reign. The town of Odi was razed by soldiers who said they were looking for the remains of their colleagues killed by natives.

Afterwards, kidnap for ransom which was isolated became the order of the day as oil workers were mostly targeted, especially foreign oil workers. Initially, some expatriate workers from certain countries were mocked as not having good kidnap values but it soon degenerated to kidnap of Nigerians and their children for ransom where it was alleged that even undercover police that were used to track or negotiate ransom payment started cooperating with kidnappers and collecting their cuts after negotiation and freeing of victims.

This was shortly followed by religious riots in Kaduna State which started with adoption of Sharia in February 2000 after Zamfara blazed the trail. It was later to spread to Jos Plateau State and raged till May with opposing faiths going for each other’s jugular. The riots from Kaduna to Jos were estimated to have cost 6000 lives in addition to properties, especially places of worship torched.

After that, the nation had a period of relative peace lasting from October 2000 to September 2001when insecurity again, burst the seams and Zaki Biam, the yam center of Nigeria was on fire. Some Tiv militia allegedly ambushed and killed 19 soldiers, President Obasanjo’s primary constituency and since he had set precedence in Odi, he again, scrambled soldiers to look for and “recover” the remains of the soldiers. What happened was another massacre which nearly brought to the fray, some serving and just retired military officers. As usual, houses were razed, women and children killed. Casualty figures ranged from 200 to 500.

Meanwhile, while some states in the north toyed with sharia as state religion with the attendant riots over religious issues, a group pushed with radicalisation of youths and other adherents, preaching puritanically. Its leader resident in Maiduguri, Muhammed Yusuf named his movement Boko Haram which in Arabic is—Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad—meaning “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad. “Boko Haram,” a combination of the Hausa word “Boko,” which literally means “Western education” and the Arabic word “Haram” which translates to “sin” or “forbidden.” Though it was said to have been birthed in between 2001 or 2002, some insist it was actually started in 1995 as Sahaba which not only abhorred western education but would not countenance or recognise the secularity of Nigeria.

Until the first clash between its members and security forces in 2009, they had been conducting their affairs peacefully with little vitriol. The clash was said to have led to the killing of many of its members before the leader was captured alive and handed over to the police in whose custody he died. What followed from that encounter had plunged Nigeria into war-like situation with many parts of the country now under the control of terrorist groups

Thereafter, though there were security issues here and there, there was none of national proportion until October of 2002 when an editorial matter in THISDAY was adjudged to have disparaged the Prophet Mohammed on the Miss World pageant. Houses were burnt including offices of newspapers. Afterwards, things calmed down for nearly two years before a major security breach was recorded

In 2004, the Yelwa-Shendam crises erupted as inter-faith clashes and heavy weapons were deployed by both sides destroying settlements and killing across faith. Soldiers were deployed. It was later to spread as far as Maiduguri in Borno State where over 50 people were reportedly killed.
When that issue died down, a cartoon in faraway Denmark said to have denigrated Prophet Mohammed again sparked riots and destruction in Maiduguri which again led to killings between Christians and Muslims.

Once Boko Haram birthed, a string of violent acts like suicide bombings became rife with members causing riots wherever they went. Suicide bombing, sometimes with improvised explosive devices which many thought were not possible in this clime now became a daily occurrence with some blaming political leaders for lacking in will and commitment to rout the insurgents. Churches were bombed and burnt, Police headquarters, the symbol of protection for the common man was also bombed, the United Nations building in Abuja, THISDAY Abuja and Kaduna offices soon were also bombed as sleep also escaped the north East.

Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Damaturu, Mubi, Madala, Bauchi, Wudil, Potiskum, Wusasa, Okene, Yola, Gombi, Wusasa, Sabo-Ngeri, Gujba and even Lagos were soon to bear scars of terrorism as attacks of places of worship and individuals, even check points became a signature and the democracy convulsed.

Of late, names like Konduga, Baga have become metaphors in human suffering with high casualty rates on security forces as they battle back and forth to control territories seized by the insurgents. Things got to a head when attacks on barracks and even super camps of the military were carried out boldly by Boko Haram fighters which government continually claimed had been technically defeated.

Each of the commanders and military chief that had high command positions had their places of origin or villages viciously attacked in an apparent move to deflate the confidence of the people in them being able to protect the people. New war machines procured by the government somehow through ambush or surprise attacks, fell into the hand of the insurgents and the war stretched. One will not even go into conspiracy theories of how a rag-tag army routinely makes military gains against a country reputed to have one of the best land soldiers and police in the world.

There were also the mounting invectives and threat of secession by the Indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) which dwelt in abuses and threats by its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, that has drawn federal fire to the South East. From its civil protest, it soon formed an armed wing allegedly to protect farmers and women from marauding herdsmen who inhabit the forests and rape anyone that they could lay hands on, killing many in the process. Presently, it is not clear if it has not overreached its protection mandate into other things that has further exacerbated the security situation of the country. In the South East region, the phenomenon of unknown gunmen has violently imposed itself on our lexicon and the region once reputed as the most peaceful in the country presently convulses in an orgy of violence. To the region, democracy plucks their youth untimely while suffering the double jeopardy of lacking in federal presence which the gunmen have serially taken out, especially office of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

It was not too long before the Boko Haram menace morphed into something more sinister and deadly both as bandits and herdsmen spread the terror from the North East to North West and North Central, even going South West and South East. This expansion added massive kidnappings, mostly of school children and prominent farmers; massacre of entire villages and towns.
The first mass kidnap of School children was in Chibok Science Secondary School where girls in their hundreds were taken away and till date, some are yet to be accounted for while Leah Sharibu that refused to denounce her faith was said to have been married off to one of the Boko Haram commanders and is said to have had two children in captivity.

Even as President Muhammadu Buhari was visiting his state, bandits struck and took away 300 students. Since then, more had been taken away either from schools, mosques or along the highways. In neighbouring Kaduna State that hosts most military formations of the country, students of the school of forestry were kidnapped as well as those of Greenfeild University that had to pay hundreds of million as well as buy motorcycles for the release of their wards though some were killed by the bandits to prove they meant business. Those are apart from kidnap of individuals and massive killings in Kajuru which has become recurring.

It was not long before there was an outcry from Niger State that bandits had taken over some communities and hoisted their flags. Kidnap of children and forceful conversion of communities to radical Islam followed. The lowest perhaps that the bandits have gone was to go to a school in Tegina, Niger State where they took away 136 pupils, age three to 12, and are demanding ransom of hundreds of millions of Naira. Communities are levied by bandits who some preachers have easy access to and meet to negotiate with them even under police and secret police protection but the authorities are unable to subdue them.

Although Delta, Anambra and Enugu states have had their share of killings by criminal herders, worst hit by bandits and herdsmen is Benue State whose governor, Samuel Ortom himself narrowly escaped death when he was attacked on his farm by bandits. Before then, killings of natives in almost all the local government areas of the state have been on mass scale. Figures that come in from the state now look like statistics instead of human beings daily bringing the man to tears each time he has to oversee mass burial of natives. Guma and Agatu stand out most on these.
The programme of the herders, Ortom has lamented was to displace natives and take over their ancestral land. Even those taking refuge at Internally Displaced Camps were pursued to the camps and slaughtered; even as it is claimed that those killing Nigerians were herders from other parts of Africa and not indigenous to Nigeria.

However, body language and pronouncements by some political leaders show partisanship as those complaining are told to “accommodate” others or that it was better for them to give up their ancestral lands instead of being killed.