Follow Us on Google
Words of our elders it has been said are words of wisdom. Abraham Lincoln was very right when he said those who deny citizens of their freedom forfeit their own right to freedom. Our people assault the dignity of others and go free. If ours were a serious country with an eye for progressive development, many of those who climb to sensitive public positions would not last long on the seat, they will be removed for staying long on the seat of mediocrity. For many of them, the offices they occupy seem bigger than their capacity and as a consequence the citizens have been made to go through various kinds of trauma and hardship.
The Inspector General of Police, Chief of Army Staff and the South-East Governors are on the spotlight today because of what is happening to citizens in some parts of the country and especially in the South East Zone. Most of the cities are not only undue garrisoned, the modus operandi of the security operatives now contribute a great deal to making the life of the people a song not worth singing. The security architecture is stifling life and making daily existence very difficult. South East is like a war zone with security checkpoints littering all the major highways. The checkpoints may not be the problem; the issue is with the operational tactics of the officers posted to those duty locations.
The attitude of the officers is clearly adversarial. They are mean and approach their targets as if they were on against an enemy. Weapon handling is very unprofessional; most of them hold up the guns, pointing nozzles directly on the citizens. Some of us have travelled outside this country including ones on permanent alert, security personnel carry their weapons professionally and it is either the guns are hung across the chest pointing downward or on the shoulder still pointing down or across the back pointing upwards. You see those sights and you love the portrait for an ideal security officer. They are not frightening neither are they rude, they are very friendly even in the most difficult of situations. The Nigerian case is different and it is worse in the Southeast where the military and police act as if they are an occupation force.
Last week, most of those who had cause to travel through Umuahia-Aba-Port-Harcourt expressway had ugly stories to tell and that was because for most part of that week the security personnel narrowed the road to one lane, that created its own problems; traffic became chaotic, as would be expected many innocent citizens became victims of abuse of their human rights. It was a common sight to see citizens being frog jumped and others forced to roll countless times on muddy waters. It was a terrible sight to behold, it was repulsing and many citizens ran with the urge to confront what were clearly breaching of the rights and dignity of fellow citizens by state officials whose primary responsibility in that circumstance was to provide citizens a comfortable thoroughfare. The security personnel could not understand what should have been their responsibility in that situation but were clear headed enough to find reasons to inflict corporal punishment on innocent road users. This is unfair just as it is unacceptable.
Citizens rights is the core reason the institution of government came into being and when there are governments, referring now to Federal, State and Local Governments and the peoples’ rights are being abused on a minute to minute basis, it should attract our attention and produce concerns. We ought to question our leaders in power and in some instances make clear demands which could include vacation of office in the case of consistent dereliction of duty. In serious societies even for causing traffic jam, somebody will lose his or her job, in our country it is not so and the consequence is what we see around. Poor attitude to job continues to be the norm. The truth is until public officers are held responsible for their acts and omissions; things would never be right in our country.
Our administrative centers are so disconnected from each other such that they hardly know what is happening even within their own areas of job description. It would not be surprising to discover that all the officers mentioned on the title of this page don’t know how difficult it has become for travelers to travel by road around some parts of this country and in particular those areas already mentioned in this piece. People in authority tell lies about their daily activities and it is difficult for their heads to receive accurate reports since they have no alternative avenue to receive more accurate report. In this situation the country suffers.
It is baffling to observe that the political leadership in the South East have not identified this problem and tried to find a solution to it. The Governors, Senators, Members of House of Representatives, Local Government Chairmen and Ohanaeze Ndigbo ought to know because this ugly development is more prevalent in the South East than any other region in the country. They ought to know that this development in the South East has been fueled by the morbid fear some leaders in our country have for secessionist agitations coming from the region. The South East leaders should undertake a critical review of the situation, define it properly and come up with an urgent solution. Their delay on this account is becoming costly for their people; Aba and Onitsha that should be following after Lagos are experiencing a squeeze. The many checkpoints are not helping business growth.
The politics of checkpoints is an issue that requires another interface between our leaders and head of security agencies. Can we have fewer checkpoints and can they be run in the most professional manner? These are some of the issues. What is this thing that makes soldiers beat up civilians even for minor traffic offences? What is in the training that says they must come against citizens as if they are going against an enemy in the war front? The South East leaders led by the Governors must engage the President and his service Chiefs about security operations in their zone. This task has become very imperative.
