A common street adage says, “A hungry man is an angry man.” The man in the above quote represents Nigerians. Indeed, Nigerians are not smiling nor laughing, neither are they ready to be reminded of previous accolade that ascribed to them as “happiest people in the world”
Only two decades ago, Nigeria was named the country with the happiest people in the world. The According to World Happiness Report, a publication of Sustainable Development Solutions, it discloses that,” Nigerians are the 95th happiest people worldwide. The report further shows that Nigeria has increased by 23 places in the world happiness.
Unfortunately, the table of goodluck and happiness has changed. A once happy people are today impoverished and unsafe people. The tide of fortune and safety have dramatically changed and like late professor Chimua Achebe described in his novel “Things fall apart,” he said. “The center cannot hold” indeed. many things in the country have fallen apart and fear and poverty are confronting the people while their leaders squander their commonwealth leaving them to faith. While there is lamentation on the streets and several homes and radical unions and religious leaders, traditional leaders are not left out as they joined in the national call on the federal government to seat up and salvage the Nigerian sinking ship. Meanwhile, on the 2023 Global Hunger Index, Nigeria ranks 109th out of the 125 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2023 GHI scores. With a score of 28.3 in the 2023 Global Hunger Index, Nigeria has a level of hunger that is serious. Question on many lips when this global report is justaposed with the prophecy of an Abuja based prophet James Kunle Hepzibah who had predicted that the present administration of President Bola Tinubu would serve Nigerians with” Bitter kola and Bitter leaf”
Medical practitioners explain that a hungry man that is angry would easily suffer from headache because he would be thinking of his next meal which may not be visible. His headache would increase with the daily rise of foodstuffs and transportation.
He would think about his family and his children school fees and their up keep. He would suffer from digestion problems due to bad meals. These social, insecurity and economic problems would definitely increased his anxiety , thereby causing ,depression and would cumulatively trigger high blood pressure and heart attack. These are what ordinary Nigerians are passing through on a daily bases. No wonder hospitals are rejecting patients.
These are what citizens of these affected countries that are battling with hunger and insecurity like Migeria. Such countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Afghanistan,,Yemen, Syria, The Sahel, South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, Nothern Ethiopia and Haiti. It has become very evident that a hungry man would angrily look and source for any means of livelihood. Which explains why there is lots of arms proliferation in the country. Your guess is correct if you link the free arms to the noticeable increase in criminality like terrorism, kidnapping and other acts of terror in the society.
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Advantages of State Police
The issue of state police has been one that this writer had advocated years back since 1993 when armed robbers were over stretching the police and making life difficult for citizens thereby creating insecure enviroment. l had severally in many of my writings from my days in National Concord Newspaper, in the defunct Examiner Newspaper and in Sunday Sun and Daily Sun Newspaper had drawn the government attention to the faulty operational policy of centralizing policing system.
However, my returned from a United Nation sponsored trip to the United State of America and Haiti inclusive in 2009, further enlighten my belief in the profits and overall advantages of the establishment of the State Police system operational in a country.
Indeed, many African States are not excluded from this unique security system.
As a patriotic citizen and security writer. l realized the importance and necessity of establishing the State police system in the country. Many would be questioning what is the rationale in the clamour for the establishment of the state police system. Simply explained, the system is a security way of decentralizing the operational and administrative activities of the police instead of the present centralization of the policing system.
It is a method of breaking down the policing system so that both state and local governments can have a better contact and functional policing syste. l recall some of my write-ups on this column.
“A new window for state police “ published May 29, 20. “Give us this day a state police” published July 19, 2021.“IBB and State police” published November 15, 2020 “State police: a solution to insurity” published May 21, 2021. “Who’s afraid of state police” published January 20, 2022
24th November 2022.
“A vote for state police “ published.
It was therefore a gladdening news when the federal government and governors of the 36 states of the federation agreed to set up state police as the nation struggles to curtail insecurity .
According to media reports, the agreement was reached during an emergency meeting between President Bola Tinubu and the governors, which took place at the presidential villa in Abuja.
Report said that the Vice President Kashim Shettima was also in attendance at the meeting called at the instance of the president.
While summarizing the presidential meeting, the minister of information and national orientation, Mohammed Idris, noted “Now, there is also a discussion around the issue of state police. The federal government and the state governments are mulling the possibility of setting up state police. “Of course, this is still going to be further discussed. A lot of work has to be done in that direction. Both the federal government and the state governments agree on the necessity of having statpolice; now this is a significant shift. But as I said, more work needs to done in that direction.” Although many are not quick to applaud the new desition of the government because of the adage that says “once beaten, twice shy.” Afterall Mr Femi Ojodu a special aide to the former Vice President proffesor Yemi Osibanjo had disclosed how the President Muhammadu Buhari was desirerous and planning to embrace the state police system idea. Femi Ojodu had told the world at a nook lunch of Dr Solomon Arase in Abuja.
Unfortunately, the Buhari’s dream to establish the country state police system was frustrated by the police leadership at the time and the pregnant idea was terminated right there in the government womb. Unknown to Nigerian leaders, had the state police being operational in 2002, the Normo state police security system would had nibbed the nefarious activities of Mohammed Yusuf, a well-known preacher and proselytizer of the Izala sect of Islam in Maiduguri , before he began to radicalize his converts that metamorphosed into the dreaded terrorists group known as Boko Haram. State police system has several security advantages that made several countries to adopt this system that has the tools to curb insecurity in a country like Nigeria.