“Are Nigerians preparing for general elections, or are they getting set for war?” That thought-provoking and pertinent question which agitated the mind of a top-notch member of the Texas-based armoured vehicle manufacturing company was vented back in 2010. He was worried about the high level of demand for armoured cars by not a few Nigerian politicians. That was prelude to the 2011 general elections and unfortunately a similar issue re-echoed in 2014/2015. Now, it is getting even more scary.
For instance, on May 24, 2017 there were newspaper reports of the seizure of 440 guns of various sizes and designs. Disclosing this to newsmen in Lagos, Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs, Monday Abueh, said the offensive cargo was shipped from Turkey. Abueh said that, “on opening the container, we discovered that they used POP powder to conceal the importation but based on intelligence report, we were able to know that the container was laden with arms.”
Subsequently, the Tin Can Island Command of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) uncovered a container with another cache of arms imported from Turkey. This discovery came barely a week after the command intercepted a 20-foot container laden with 1,100 pump action rifles. The container with number, CMAU189817/8 had about 475 sets of pump-action riffles reportedly belonging to the same importer of the previous one.
This sordid scenario of the escalation of illegal arms importation each time we are supposed to be preparing for general elections is not only worrisome but demeans our definition of democracy and the quest for political power here in Nigeria. If the motive of politics is to serve the interest and meet the needs, and aspirations of the citizenry; in the pursuit of the common good why must we acquire it by brute force?
One is concerned because the situation has been on for years and there seems to be no permanent solution to it. Caches of yet unidentified arms are still in the hands of our restive, mostly unemployed but misguided youths used by vested interests to cause chaos and terror. The government is still battling with the Boko Haram insurgency, the armed Fulani herdsmen are still on rampage while the Niger-Delta militants and others with one grievance or the other against the Nigerian state are waiting in the wings to explode. Surely, we cannot go on this way.
It would be recalled that on 20th November, 2012, JTF raided Kwanar Shahada, Jushin Ciki, Zaria, Kaduna, where a bomb making factory was uncovered. The joint security team also arrested a sixty-year-old man, Umaru Mohammed within the raided premises and recovered Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs at stage one state of readiness to be used for bomb attack.
And on 28 May 2013 a combined team of the JTF involving the NA of the 3rd Brigade in Kano and the Kano state DSS conducted a thorough search of a house located at No 3 Gaya Road off Bompai Road Kano. It belonged to one Abdul Hassan Taher Fadlalla, a Lebanese national. The search team uncovered an underground bunker in the master’s bedroom where large quantities of assorted weapons of different types were buried. Thereafter, on 26 May 2013 one Talal Roda, also a Lebanese with Nigerian Passport was arrested in this same house. But there were more discoveries to come.
When preparations were in high gear for the 2015 general elections, security had to be beefed up in the Kano metropolis after the Nigerian military, stationed at the Aminu Kano International Airport, seized a Russian-registered airplane heading for neighbouring Chad Republic, loaded with huge quantities of arms, ammunition and explosives.
It is also on record that within the space of two days, two leading Nigerian newspapers focused on the scary situation of an upsurge in illegal arms importation into the country. The first was the Saturday Punch edition of February 1, 2014, with the screaming headline-2015 Elections: Illegal Arms Importation Rises. Demand for bulletproof vehicles increases. Then came, the Sunday Sun of February 2,2014 with the reports of the praise-worthy efforts of the police in this regard across the country. In Edo, the police arrested 60 suspects and recovered large arms cache. In Anambra state 181 robbers were nabbed by the police, recovering 78,496 guns. And in the embattled Rivers State, 243 firearms were recovered. But that was not all.
That same year, the Rivers State Security Service Operatives intercepted high caliber ammunition in a 20-foot container at the Port Harcourt port. The vessel which brought in the container was identified as MV Iron Trader and carried 2,700 anti-aircraft and anti-tank bombs. Other items recovered included 243 firearms,6,944 ammunition,88 magazine,523 catridges,58 vehicles and 94 bags of Indian Hemp.
The question is that if the politicians value the irreplaceable lives of fellow Nigerians why would they resort to arming misguided youths in the bid to get into office, instead of providing jobs for those same malleable minds? Would they, in good conscience be happy if their own sons are lured into the bloody theatre of politicking and get their lives wasted in the process? Of course,not.
Would it not have been much wiser to assist the electorate from their constituencies to start small and medium scale enterprises? Or, building hospitals and equipping them with drugs and modern medical equipment? Or, equipping libraries to empower the young minds and prepare them for the future?
If both the Police and Customs Services have been able to impound so much illegal arms and ammunition, how many out there have found their way into private homes and hideous hideouts? They should not rest on their oars. Thorough Investigations into the activities of the mindless arms importers should get to their logical conclusion, to fish out those behind these activities and bring them to speedy justice. Only this would serve as a deterrent to those who may be nursing similar blood-letting politicking.
Truth be told, the change we need is to de-monetize the polity. I have been a lone voice in the wilderness of mesmerizing materialism calling for a drastic reduction in the pay package of political appointees. In a country where local government councilors earn more than university lecturers and where the take home emoluments of law makers and ministers are still shrouded in secrecy, the lure of the lucre has been the centripetal force drawing people into politics.
Nigerians do not guns and bullets but dividends of democracy. We have suffered enough and not a single citizen should be killed to pave way for any politician to get into positions of authority.
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