Principalities converge over insecurity

Barring any last-minute change of plans, the Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba N’Edo, Uku Akpolokpolo Ewuare II will, at noon today, host an urgent confab of native doctors, traditional priests and priestesses. Agenda: worsening insecurity in Nigeria and what the traditional frontline of native doctors can do about the national emergency. It has come to that.

Notice for the meeting holding under the auspices of the paramount Benin monarch in his palace, asked the invitees to treat the summon with “utmost urgency”. Without doubt, there is fire on the mountain and the Oba is concerned.

Convoking a summit of native doctors and traditional priests to explore strategies to intervene in Nigeria’s intractable security crisis speaks, not only of the patriotic zeal of the Oba for Nigeria’s welfare, but also of his can-do spirit. The decision by Ewuare II, a former diplomat, to explore a native solution to a deteriorating national problem that appears so far to defy government’s modern devices, introduces a fresh dimension, even if a jaw-dropping one, to the entire insecurity discussion.

There have never been any doubts about the noble pedigree of Oba Ewuare II. Even at that, by his latest singular disposition to the search for a decisive response to the burgeoning problem of insecurity in Nigeria, he has confirmed, as the expression goes, that he is the true son of his father. His unshaking confidence in who he is, where he is coming from, and what he has, is the stuff authenticity of character is made of.

The fact that he has initiated a high-intensive consultative meeting of native doctors and sundry principalities in Benin to consider the unique alternative they could offer in combating AK-47 and heavy weapon-bearing bandits, holds the monarch up as a traditionalist with utmost confidence in the traditional ways. The Oba has proved, even by this singular initiative, to be true to himself and the throne of his forefathers.

It is remarkably refreshing to find a living proof of a true believer in the ‘African solution’ – that often-opaque problem-solving option that thrives more in myths and hypes of what it could do, more than what problem it has solved. Anywhere. References to the efficaciousness of the ‘African solution’, have always been short on empirical validity. Now, Ewuare II is on his ways to possibly setting the record straight. Let’s face it, if terrorists and bandits are dislodged and dispatched, nobody will fail to see their undoing.

It is quite disheartening that later-day efforts to put the ‘African solution’ to contemporary service, including the once suggested “black bomb”, ostensibly a counter-force to the series of modern bombs that have wreaked havoc in Africa, could not eventually fly, neither at night nor by day.

The consultation today of Ewuare II with his college of native doctors and traditional priests and priestesses, for the sole purpose of mapping out strategies to wade into Nigeria’s escalating insecurity, holds out a firm ground for excitement and hope, possibly. Even if it takes mobilizing witches and wizards to intervene in the present dangerous station that has been foisted on Nigerians, so let it be.

With the government manifestly out of its wits in the insecurity problem, no option should be off the table. In any case, the common refrain these days from prime government quarters, including top security personnel, is that fighting insecurity is everybody’s business. That is to say, the primary functionaries of the state responsible for protecting the rest of the society from danger are in retreat.

The Oba of Benin is stepping in with his spiritual troop at a most auspicious juncture. The government’s response to the onslaught of the terrorists and bandits is largely disjointed and often appear ad hoc. The military is, from all indications caught in a rattrap, losing its prized commanders and men at an alarming rate. Allegations of misapplication of the security budget are rife.

Attempts by people like the Edo North senator, Adams Oshiomhole to get the Senate to thoroughly investigate the budget and expenditure of the military have never yielded any result. Meanwhile, no less than 30 Yoruba traditional rulers in the Ondo-Ekiti-Kwara axis have fled their communities following the abduction and killing of eleven obas in recent months. Various other parts of the country are equally bleeding. Nigeria is in a deep crisis, let no one deceive anyone.

It is possible that the Oba of Benin was jolted into initiating the consultation with native doctors and traditional priests for security purposes after watching some of the recent assault on Edo State by the bandits. The state, a veritable economic powerhouse, has steadily being sucked into the vortex of banditry and insecurity by external invaders.

Sadly, the State government allowed itself to be browbeaten, months back, into accepting that nine armed elements whose unaccounted presence in the state was a precursor to a rash of banditry attacks in the state, were mere hunters at the time of their death in unclear circumstances. The failure of the Edo State government and the federal government to confront headlong threats to lives and property in their domains in the name of politics, aggravated the insecurity challenge. 

As the outcome of the crucial strategy meeting of Ewuare II with his native doctors and principalities is awaited, the government should at least complement the patriotic initiative of the revered traditional ruler by summoning courage to do few correct things. First, it has to show willingness to tell itself the truth and be fair to Nigerians. It needs help and must go all out to get help to prosecute the war against insecurity.

Two, reviving down-and-out terrorists and throwing them back into the society in the guise of repentant terrorists is one of the conclusive pieces of evidence that the government in Nigeria has self-destructive tendencies. Who does that elsewhere? Shouldn’t repentant terrorists be absorbed in farming instead of in the military?

Third, Nigeria is in an emergency. Individual rights do get curtailed in times of emergency. The right of individuals to roam about or inhabit forests, especially far from their homes, needs to be drastically curtailed, for obvious reasons.

The insecurity-tackling scheme of the principalities in Benin, whether executed on land or in the air, whether in the night or day light, will surely add a renewed bite to government’s campaign that is badly floundering. How so uplifting it is to note that very soon bandits and terrorists turning the vast fertile and bustling land of Edo into a war zone will not know what hit them.

The model cannot wait to be replicated across the troubled frontiers of Nigeria. The homegrown solution-initiative by Oba of Benin, Uku Akpolokpolo, Ewuare II, offers exciting prospects. Talk of a different kind of kinetic approach. Over to all traditional rulers worth the name.