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It is important to make the point that the world will never respect the Black race, not just Africa, until we have an example of qualitative contribution to modern civilization. Until the world sees one great country emerge from the Black world so will the scorn, disparagement, disregard, disdain and racial taunts against blacks remain in place. The developed world hates us with passion because of the way we do our things.
They loathe the lack of organization prevalent in virtually all of the Black settlements across the world. The Black race in modern times has failed to grow because of the way we do things. No leader in the civilized world would do what President Bola Ahmed Tinubu chose to do last week.
On the eve of the President’s state visit to Britain, Maiduiguri, capital of Borno State was hit by a bomb blast. Government accounts put fatalities at 23 and the wounded were many. Yet, neither the president or his deputy headed to the state. Rather, the president together with his wife and fanfare continued their journey to Britain with so many public officials in the entourage while his deputy went to Anambra State to represent him at the inauguration of Governor Soludo for a second term of office.
Now see the points of abdication of cardinal responsibility to the people and state. The constitution expressly says,”the welfare and security of citizens is the major responsibility of the government.” Ordinary meaning and interpretation of it is simple: first line responsibility or action of the government is upliftment of the citizens and assurance of their existence in healthy conditions. First line charge.
If this is true then our president ought to have cancelled the visit to Britain. By doing so a strong message would have been sent that in this clime we view with seriousness acts that tend to tear an organization that is in place. It will portray seriousness and commitment to stability, peace and safety as well tell whoever cares to know that the government would go to any length to have peace and stability in the country. We didn’t take this path last week, neither have we at any other time. With this, deviants misread the mood.
One wouldn’t want to waste time on enumerating the importance of leaders visiting crime scenes, especially when citizens are harmed. It is an elementary leadership lesson to teach here. One vital point to note, however, would be that it is a dangerous thing to make citizens feel they are not catered for, telling them that what happens to them doesn’t concern anything, including the government. Nothing can be more treacherous.
The President, it is reported, directed or ordered the Chief of Army Staff to relocate to Maiduiguri. The question is to do what? Do what numerous very top security officers in the state couldn’t do? Or does this fall within the same old refrain of making some noise and putting on display some showmanship, allowing tempers to cool and life goes on? Otherwise the question would be,”what new security strategies are they going to formulate, which they couldn’t formulate and make a regular practice in the daily discharge of their assignments?
We leave that and give attention to the topic of the day: our security strategies and the poor results we get. We have made this point severally in our various treatments of security matters on this page and it bears repetition today. A lot of spaces in the country are ungoverned and unprotected. This point is vital. Any felon adequately armed can lay ambush in any of these points, execute an evil agenda and still get away very easily and so successfully.
Even if citizens live close by no cooperation would come from them and the blame isn’t theirs, it is that of the leadership class that doesn’t know that citizens are educated and even indoctrinated into civic rights and responsibilities. Only five percent of our citizens know crime prevention is everybody’s responsibility, and not a task for the government alone. If we teach this in schools definitely it is not with the depth it ought to be taught.
The other side of no security presence whatsoever would be absence of technology. There is no set up to monitor our spaces. Perhaps this may be asking for too much at this point, maybe we deal first with the simple solutions.
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Abroad it is very difficult not to see security vehicles pass you every five minutes. On the highways there are no roadblocks but the presence of security is palpable. You feel and see it. Every five to 10 minutes security vehicles move past in opposite directions. Intermittently they stop to observe and listen to radio communications.
We have observed earlier that in our case it is a rare occurrence. In the Southeast where security checkpoints have become the order of the day, even though an untrained hand in the business one can easily see the abnormalities with they’re approach. Their numbers, especially those on night duties are inadequate on each of the checkpoints.
A well equipped gang of 10 can sack a checkpoint, either take them out completely or take them hostage. One has witnessed daredevil citizens get to checkpoints and zoom off with speed leaving the security personnel surprised and bewildered, very helpless. These law breakers still go ahead to cross the next one with no one detecting that they just broke through a checkpoint a few metres earlier. This is possible because there’s no communication between one post and the next. No proper lighting and other equipment that can’t enhance safety of security officers.
In most cities across this country, one can get killed in the city centre or better still crowded city points and still escape. Except for very few cities like Lagos and maybe one or two others there is hardly a security presence in our crowded locations in the day time. Night time is worse.
From 5.00pm, security agents crowd the roads and begin to disturb those returning from legitimate businesses for the day and once it is nine o’clock they disappear. The other matter would be that mounting a checkpoint appears to be the main crime fighting tactics in the country.
The plain truth is that our strategies for crime fighting are outdated. There are constraints quite alright and there would always be even when we set the architecture right, every solution throws up a new challenge. The issue is that we have to move our security strategies to a new level.
The place to start is getting our political class to commit to peace. Nigerians may be surprised at this but that is the foundation of insecurity, crime and social tension in our political class. They have this philosophy of “profit from chaos.” Crime and criminality have been sustained by recruitment of criminal characters, use them to achieve political aims and then discard them with nothing to live on. These felons who have had very close affiliation with the politicians when let loose turn around to vent their anger on the larger society.
Boko Haram, bandits, terrorists and kidnappers are not organic crime merchants; they are by-products of demonic political engineering. Arab funds have not helped matters at all. In every community strange persons are found, they didn’t just stay in Chad, Niger or Burkina Faso to know that a village called Umuiku exists somewhere in a very remote corner of Abia State. Someone, well equipped and perhaps aided by state institutions, took time to use instruments available to plot and execute mischievous agenda he knows is capable of jeopardizing peace and stability. This is one of the triggers of insecurity in the country.
Nigerian leaders declared the country home to all wandering nomads in Africa. We are reaping the results. President Donald Trump once told Americans “everywhere has a gate including heaven, only hell has none.” We in the country didn’t think much of this and the cost of unscrupulous behavior has become too much to handle.
We need state and community policing. We could add corporate security too. A society that wants adequate security must in a creative manner put more guns in the hands of the citizens. The citizens need training and education. More importantly, it is time officers take responsibility for failing in responsibilities. If killings continue without abating, the Minister of Interior and Defense should be relieved of their offices. If in a local government, state or the country, the Divisional Police Officer, Area Commander or Commissioner of Police should lose office. Finally, the security agents need modern equipment and proper training. Town planning is part of the deal.
