Balance of force

Last week, our attention on this page focused on finding solutions to our security challenges. So many solutions were offered in line with the known tradition of our outing on this page. We don’t just pick loopholes for the sake of finding errors, the intention has always remained to provide workable answers to our teething challenges. The media has been doing so but the problem and many of us consider this the biggest problem those who should pick the pieces of advice and use, unfortunately don’t read newspapers or watch television programmes anytime at all.

They are hooked up in their world, most times a world of hedonism, drinking, chatting and frittering away useful man hours with friends. Some of us have been of the view that any brilliant leader could post very impressive performances in public office just by reading or watching the news in television and picking the brains of others. Our leaders don’t see any sense in this venture. Their calculation is focused on contracts, cronies and money. It is one of the principal reasons we are where we are in terms of developing our space, part ofthe reason the security situation has kept growing from bad to worse and worse to worst.

     Last week the prescriptions, if one was to offer opinion, was solid. Make security challenge an emergency and national project, not in terms of lining our roads with checkspoints thereby increasing extortion points but by way of attaching the seriousness required for such a matter and getting all citizens to buy in. Since our successive governments at all levels began battling the scourge of insecurity we are yet to hear of an all parties summit. Citizens hardly report criminal characters in their domain not because they are afraid about management of information given, but the majority don’t know what their responsibility is in this regard.

    The National Orientation Agency (NOA) is dead. A lot of us know governments can solve crimes by the tool of public englightenment. Some security related incidents are fallouts of deliberate actions of political leaders. It has been so even before independence. Few weeks ago one of our political leaders who wants to be elected President couldn’t find the courage to condemn the killing of a Christian girl by an Islamic mob that happened in Sokoto. This is the level our leadership class has taken us. It has left us with a society wobbling, about to fall and break.

     No one is talking about democratization of security and political restructuring even when it is what we agreed on at independence. The North who insisted on those terms today is resisting them because military intervention in our body politics has conferred power advantages to their side. Today they love unitarism and when pushed they talk about community policing without giving vent even to it. The consequences are there and absolutely  manifestly clear for all who care to see to see. No day passes without barbarians killing citizens in the most horrendous manner.

     Militias masquerading as herders brought in from the Sahel region are all over the country causing mayhem. Everyday the government at the centre responsible for security is busy  issuing condolences and done so to the point they no longer have words to use. The divides have widened, yet we have told us who insist that religious and ethnic balancing is not an important matter. One of them is Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State. His state has been a flashpoint for ethnic and religious crisis from independence. Expectations, therefore, had been that whoever manages the state should do all to walk the delicate divide.

    This governor didn›t see to walk the path, he made away with a Christian Deputy Governor and made it Muslim-Muslim. Since then the Christian side has had a mouthful. The governor denies a correlation between his act and negative developments that have refused to abet. He may be correct to the extent that the Christians in the state and in the country kept calm when that happened. No balance of force. If he knew there could be consequences there would be restraint. A Christian deputy would know the workings of government and relate to his people just as he will open his people’s perspective in its raw form to his principal and right solutions would be developed and applied.

     This is why el-Rufai failed woefully in Kaduna and now desires to export same model to the incoming federal government that should have among its first responsibility, if it wins, the onerous assignment of reversing negative consequences of ethno/religious disposition of the outgoing administration of Muhammadu Buhari. ef-Rufai and others like him insist on religious and ethnic balancing in our governments and so it shouldn’t matter. They are new converts to merit, yet they have not advocated merit as basis for recruiting government workers, promotion and for admissions. Here lies the hypocrisy. Double standards.

     They push and have their way because they are well aware there is no balance of force anywhere. The South East that offered minor resistance is easily broken up for various reasons. The South West that always packs some power always expects to find the crumbs and that is enough. The All Progressives Congress (APC) dominated by Northern political force know they owe the South West a debt, but it was a debt they were not willing to pay until it dawned on them that fighting Yoruba and Igbo at the same time would keep their hands very full, so they made ceding the presidential candidate look like a favour.

    Yet, if anyone with keen eyes sees the make up of the crowd behind Tinubu and compare it with those that follow Buhari, it would be clear the North is not letting go. He will be further helmed in the name of national unity and ultimately may not receive the level of reciprocal support he expects. It may turn out that what they give with the left hand they would take with the right hand. This atmosphere is happening because they see no balance of force any where. South Eastern is down.The final blow was delivered by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which told Ndigbo you can win the presidency ticket but our people won’t vote for your son, you can only get it when we are through and decide to dash the opportunity.

     If there existed balance of force the posturing will be very different. Our country is today in a flux. The security situation has assumed a frightening dimension. Christian communities and gatherings are coming under increased attacks. It is happening and not even the authorities have clearly identified who is behind it. What is worse is that the officials of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have become politicians. They lost direction and focus. Compromising relations have taken the fire away from them. They ought to be disbanded. Their inactivity has emboldened felons. After every attack, all they do is rise and cry. Where has crying 4solved problems? Emotions don›t solve challenges, actions do.

      We have rich examples from Australia and New Zealand, very recent ones for that matter. Islamic fundamentalists were threatening Christian worshippers, attacking and killing them, government was unable to stem the ugly tide. Church leaders came up with very simple solution: arm some members and position them in strategic locations among the worshippers. When the barbarians came and not one was left alive, the madness dissolved with the speed of light. Before anyone thinks this is incitement to violence it should be known that self-defense is adequately provided for in our laws.

     Sections 49 and 50 are copious on this. If mauraders are up against you, you have a right to procure a weapon to defend your self and same for other groups. The other day indigenes of two local government areas in Abia State poured into the bushes to smoke out criminals who had made life such a terrible nightmare in the area. This is what it should be. It amazes how governors play dumb, stay and watch their people kidnapped, maltreated, ransom taken and many others killed in the most brutal manner by foreigners who came all the way from Sahel region. This level of abdication of responsibility is unexplainable.