Sources of insecurity in Nigeria

Truly, I had told myself we have done enough on insecurity on this page and therefore should leave that for a while. As it turned out the decision didn’t last because of a very important question Professor Chidi Odinkalu pushed through at the security summit organised on the penultimate week by Thisday Newspaper and Arise Television management.

While most of the very cerebral participants dwelt mainly on insecurity and the necessity of otherwise state police, Odinkalu found the good judgement off the line but asked questions that ordinarily should have been at the heart of the matter, talking security wise truth.

He said we ought to be certain of the kind of insecurity plaguing the country, identify them not just by kinds but by percentages. Anyone who is conversant with research methodology would understand why this is very important. The approach helps leaders to understand what the challenge really is, a sickness properly identified is half solved. Percentage gives issues perspective..

The most important question Odinkalu posed was ” what are the sources of insecurity in the country”? This question is vital,it is at the heart of the matter. Insecurity we keep hearing and not only hearing but for nearly twenty years running throwing everything including very huge finances into it and not getting commonsurate results.

It is time to pause and ask again,”what kinds of insecurity do we have in the country and what are the petrols fueling them, making them occur almost on a daily basis and increasingly appearing intractable.

Odinkalu told us the chief source is political. He said when leaders fail to meet societal needs violence is inevitable. He made some sense but obviously not the whole sense. Poor governance obviously would provoke negative reactions including violence this is true but the kind of instability it pours into the system wouldn’t be the type that takes the country into the circle of insurgency.

We can experience arm robbery on a large scale, pains of social dislocation can increase displaced aggression, increase in social tensions between different groups even contestation could be fierce yet it won’t be enough to move the country towards the brink. Those malaise can be quickly identified and stemmed with minimal efforts.

The greatest source of current insecurity isn’t the downturn in the economy, it is not essentially about the effects of a poor and ineffective governance system, it is more about supremacist expansionist ambition. It is about the sole takeover of the country Nigeria by medieval forces. This is the threat and nothing more. If we must call a spade by its true name then it would be crucial to make the point that the jihadists are up in arms pursuing a dream they don’t care what it will cause the country and humanity.

They are not perturbed by what is happening because from the lessons of history they do know the pursuit of such dreams can indeed be very costly and tragic but they are always buoyed to continue because of the level of support lined behind and what they believe guns can do. The root of insecurity is buried in the activities of herder militia men.  We had them before then they were few and carried no guns.

Today the whole thing has changed. Their numbers in the country have increased exponentially to the point many are wondering if all the herders we see in the country were born here. Truth is many of them would tell on little inquiry they came from outside the country. The next question would be how did they identify my very rural village Umuiku and how they know it is a good place to stay and do business?

If you have read American adventurism, the coming into the land by people of Europe and how they began dealing with the native Indians they met there then you won’t have a challenge understanding what the Nigerian adventurist game is all about and the armada of forces behind it. It is no child’s play.

The Governor of Bauchi State is a young man speaking in relative terms. He is well educated and exposed yet he was on an open television programme in this country telling the world “the Fulani have designated Nigeria their country of abode. We heard and pretended it wasn’t a serious matter. At another point we began to hear that large numbers of persons weren’t streaming into the country, many of them bearing arms.

   Not long after news went through people of the Sahel were ferried across the country in trailers and buses, many of them getting into forests to create new homes on other people’s land without permission. Today, we are seeing the outcome, attacks in farms provoking food insecurity, kidnapping and allied vices. It is beginning to appear that we are helpless.

  As we begin to end this outing it is important to state that there was a time when policy makers especially in our northern fringes this country shouldn’t have a closed border. They told us they share affinity with the people of Sahel. We leave it there. El Zakzarky didn’t just spring. To be sure it was not strictly about religion. A foreign country was throwing in resources and the question would be for what purposes?

It would amount to the highest level of stupidity to think Morocco, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates aren’t interested in pushing religious expansionism in the country. Things unravel where big money enters. This is where we are.

Federalism as a concept was designed and meant to provide a check against all kinds of over-reaching but those who captured the Nigerian state and opted for its redesign didn’t contend with one thing: distortions and infusions of contradictions would kill rather than build. They brought the country to its knees and would kill it except a positive intervention happens very quickly. Otherwise we are on the highway to Mutunda.