ON many fronts – security, economy and social life – Nigeria is crumbling. National cohesion is also under severe strain. In the midst of these existential perils, two influential personalities separately alerted Nigerians to the uncontrolled upsurge in bloodshed across the land and the danger of state failure. Shortly after Enoch Adeboye, a leading cleric, expressed serious concern about the rampage of criminals nationwide, Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president (1999-2007), raised similar fears. To save Nigeria from implosion, every stakeholder should weigh in, proffer, and act on practical solutions to curb the unprecedented insecurity ravaging the country.
To the duo and many others within and outside the country, the government appears to have lost control. In a mournful analysis, an American think tank, Council on Foreign Relations, concluded that democracy has been imperilled while the country itself is on the brink of unravelling.
For many Nigerians, daily existence is perilous. Currently, attention is riveted on the bloody violence raging in Kaduna, the North-West state that hosts the highest number of security formations in West Africa. Within 48 hours, terrorists attacked the Kaduna International Airport, and the Abuja-Kaduna train in succession. It is a first by terrorists on Nigeria’s air and rail transportation systems.
It illustrates the helplessness, carelessness and incompetence of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). Nearly seven years in office, he is the very antithesis of a retired general, one of whose main electoral allure in 2015 was his perceived capability and willingness to tackle insecurity.
Kaduna is not the only cauldron. From Islamic terrorists in the North-East to bandits-terrorists in the North-West, Fulani herdsmen-killers in the North-Central, to vicious gunmen in the South-East, and kidnappers in the South-West, and militants in the South-South, Nigerians have never had it so bad. Even the three-year Civil War (1967-1970) was restricted to the old Eastern Region that comprised today’s South-East and South-South regions. Frightfully, as Nigeria is coming apart, the Buhari regime looks forlornly lost. It caps its ineptitude by its refusal to face the grave reality. Buhari refuses to take charge. Even worse, the regime continues to play sectional politics with security.
The populace is traumatised, fearful and demoralised. As Adeboye lamented, “You cannot go to Kaduna by road, you cannot go to Kaduna by air and you cannot go to Kaduna by rail. The question is, why Kaduna and who are those ones responsible? Which state is going to be the next?” It is a potent query.
A Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, said, “This government needs help, it can no longer cope. It has been going on for years and I don’t know if the citizens of this country should live under such a cloud, such uncertainty: get up in the morning and you don’t know if you would get back at night.” This is putting it bluntly.
Civil society organisations said terrorists slaughtered 1,545 Nigerians between January and March, and abducted 1,321 others. Kaduna took the worst beating. On different days in March, 37 people were murdered in the Kaura, Giwa, Birnin-Gwari and Gurara local government areas. In the train attack, terrorists killed eight persons; over 100 are still unaccounted for.
As terrorists and kidnappers run amok, Nigeria’s self-centred politicians are engrossed with the politics of 2023, over and above the threat that insecurity poses to the country’s corporate existence. Nigerians, who bear the brunt of their misrule and avarice, should mount pressure to force them to fix the tottering edifice first before another round of leadership change where each incumbent is worse than its predecessor.
Obasanjo said, “All right thinking Nigerians must know that we have a situation that has overwhelmed the present administration.” Unquestionably; and the evidence is written in blood daily. No part of the country is safe anymore. The roads are unsafe to travel on; at home, there is real fear. Now, the rail tracks are under threat. Under Buhari, the Nigerian state is losing control. In some areas, the collapse of state authority is total.
The North-West states of Kaduna, Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto and Katsina, once havens of peace, are under a bloody siege by terrorists and industrial scale kidnappers. In 2021, terrorists hiding under banditry tag abducted over 1,000 school pupils in the North. This is a region that is already home to a majority of the country’s 13 million out-of-school children. New York-based Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect calculated that between 2018 and 2020, terrorism claimed the lives of 4,900 persons in the North-West.
Fulani herdsmen are spilling rivers of blood in the North-Central states. Niger Governor, Sani Bello, admitted that terrorists currently occupy swathes of the state, with Shiroro LGA the worst hit. Despite anti-open grazing laws in several states, rampaging herdsmen continue to kill and displace thousands. Boko Haram and its more deadly splinter, ISWAP, still rule parts of the North-East. Increasingly, they are spreading westwards and southwards, forging alliances with herdsmen and bandits.
The South-East is another killing field. Criminals riding on the back of self-determination agitation have taken to terrorist tactics and seeking to impose their writ through illegal sit-at-home orders, murder and destruction of public facilities.
A sure sign that the regime is losing control is the frequent slaughter of soldiers and policemen. When terrorists ambush and kill troops, overrun military posts and steal their weaponry, it means the guardians of the state are themselves fair game for deviants and can hardly defend the people.
Oil industry operators say over 80 of the crude extracted in the South-South is stolen. In the South-West, kidnapping is prevalent. So also are cult violence and gangsterism. Recently, 15 rival cult members died in turf battles in Abeokuta and Sagamu, both in Ogun State.
In contrast, United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics stated that Scotland lost just 55 persons to homicides from March 2020 to April 2021. Only 594 deaths were recorded in the UK within the same period. But in the first three weeks of 2022, 486 people were killed in Nigeria, averaging about 23 persons daily. CFR’s Nigerian Security Tracker said violence claimed 87,903 lives in the 10 years to March 2022.
Defending itself, the Buhari regime argues that it inherited insecurity, insisting that it is trying its best. It is a hollow defence. Nigerians, who are daily subjected to the marauders on the road, on their farms, on trains, in their offices and homes, think otherwise. It is admittedly, not for want of funding. The regime allocates humongous billions to security, but typically, there is no accountability, little oversight or tangible result.
Instructively, Nigeria is exhibiting all the symptoms of a failing state. Failure to act decisively could accelerate the pace towards complete disintegration. The country was ranked the 12th most fragile state out of 179 countries in the Fragile States Index 2021.
To save the country, more Nigerians should speak up. Peaceful protest is a legitimate tool in a democracy. Before the 2023 polls, they should resolutely demand a national consensus to address insecurity. It bears repeating that the national security architecture has failed totally. The imperative of overturning the single police system, which the political elite resist, should be the starting point. Without local policing, the country is doomed.
Even the affluent are in trouble, as the Kaduna train attack demonstrated. The number of police officers (370,000) is too few to successfully combat the criminals. As a North-West governor revealed, there are 30,000 terrorists in Zamfara alone, and 120,000 throughout the region. Therefore, policing should be decentralised immediately, giving states and LGAs power to control their police and vigilance forces respectively. Officers attached to VIPs should be withdrawn and deployed in field operations.
The weaknesses of the military and the State Security Service have to be addressed. Instead of concentrating resources on gathering and acting on actionable intelligence on the location, movement, funding and logistics of the terror groups, the SSS distracts itself with self-determination groups and regime critics. Self-determination groups are not as deadly as Boko Haram, ISWAP, bandit/terrorists or Fulani herdsmen. The secret police should shift its focus to effective intelligence-gathering and neutralisation of terrorists. Critics are harmless and only exercising their fundamental rights.
The military’s deployment in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory battling internal security is taking its toll. It is an aberration. Were Nigeria to face a foreign invasion today, where are the troops to protect the territorial integrity?
Repeatedly, The PUNCH, joined by perceptive patriots, has enjoined federal and state lawmakers, with the support of state governors, to invoke the ‘doctrine of necessity’ and amend the 1999 Constitution to facilitate state policing. So far, they have turned a deaf ear. But the country is crumbling; so by all peaceful and legal means, all Nigerians must in unison strongly demand action before complete anarchy ensues.
Individually and collectively, ordinary Nigerians should persistently make their voices heard, insisting on a fundamental restructuring of the country into a true federalism. This will enthrone productivity, self-reliance, merit and positive competition among the states, rather than the subsisting era of mediocrity, poor governance, corruption and insecurity everywhere. Time is running out.
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