LIKE the apocalyptic doomsday, recent predictions by some prominent figures on the imminent spread of terrorism nationwide are coming to pass with devastating rapidity. The terrorist attacks in quick succession on the Birnin-Gwari-Kaduna Highway and the kidnap of 37 persons; and on a church in Owo, Ondo State, where 40 persons died, validate warnings by a Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, and by the Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, that terrorists had infested every part of the country. The Federal Government, working with the states, must act with utmost speed and devise new strategies to prevent state collapse.
The government’s persistent failure to act on the warnings and actionable intelligence on insecurity has made the country dangerously unsafe and tilting towards state failure.
Soyinka, not for the first time, warned that the 13-year insurgency is spreading fast beyond its epicentre in the North-East. Earlier, el-Rufai had said that Boko Haram terrorists and its offshoots had taken over territory in Kaduna State. Many other alerts have been sounded over the years by domestic and foreign agencies, governments, news outlets and individuals. Repeatedly, the government has neither taken them with seriousness nor acted proactively to contain and defeat terrorism.
The carelessness has allowed Boko Haram/ISWAP and other offshoots to rebound after an initial degrading by the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). Today, terror groups under different tags have berthed in all six of the country’s geopolitical zones. Islamic terrorists — Boko Haram, ISWAP, Ansaru — have linked up with Fulani herdsmen and bandits/terrorists to lay siege to the entire North and penetrated the southern zones too. In the South-East, shadowy insurgents labelled “unknown gunmen” have unleashed terror on security personnel, government officials and civilians alike.
Buhari and his security chiefs should stop living in denial. As Soyinka said, “The times are not normal and thus require off-beat, lateral thinking, new constructs outside orthodox boxes of military engagement. Above all, let no one imagine that the ongoing insurgency will forever remain within its present borders; it spreads, it contaminates. It breeds mutations in least expected places.”
El-Rufai was also strident, saying, “The problem of insecurity now has moved from the North-East to the North-West, and what is happening in North-West is far more serious and potentially more dangerous than we have ever had in the North-East.”
Governor Abubakar Bello had in April 2021 confirmed the presence and occupation of parts of Niger State by Boko Haram. He warned that Kaure, one of the communities where the terrorists had hoisted their flag “is just two hours’ drive to Abuja, so nobody is safe anymore, not even those in Abuja.”
In January, Governor Bello Matawalle of bandit-ridden Zamfara State said ISWAP fighters had taken over some local government areas. In the South-East, terrorists pledging allegiance to the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra are on a killing spree, decapitating their victims and killing women and children in the most horrific manner.
In the South-South and the South-West, insurgents in the garb of killer herdsmen and kidnapping cum ritual killers have taken over, terrorising Nigerians.
The Kaduna State Government says bandits murdered 1,552 persons, kidnapped 3,348 others between January 2021 and March 2022. About 60 of those abducted by terrorists from a passenger train in Kaduna in March are still in their custody, with the government and security agencies helpless to secure their release.
Terrorism has exposed all the fault lines of Nigeria–regional, sectarian, and ethnic. Major countries routinely issue travel advisories warning their nationals to avoid Nigeria. Agriculture, tourism, hospitality, transportation, and other important economic drivers are largely down; the economy has been partially crippled by insurgency.
Buhari and the military must think outside the box. First, know your enemy; know the nature of the war and adapt accordingly. Insurgents are driven by rabid ideologies and do not change. Islamists actively seek to die in jihad and do not “repent.” They have to be defeated, not pampered.
The government and the military should stop the deluded, ill-conceived practice of “amnesty” to terrorists; only fringe players recant, not the die-hard Salafists.
Insurgents fight an asymmetric war, not conventional. A total overhaul of the security apparatus and doctrines is imperative. The United States created a new agency – the Department of Homeland Security – and a new intelligence coordination system after the 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, Nigeria has not reformed its intelligence services since 1989.
As the renowned physicist, Albert Einstein, said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” The military must change its tactics and develop strong counter-guerrilla warfare capacity. It should embrace the use of area surveillance, cutting-edge intelligence and technology tools and effective rapid response capability. It needs to adopt a unified combatant command structure in the field for effective coordination of the operations of the deployed Army, Air Force, and Navy units.
The intelligence services must identify terror financiers, their sources of funding, supply lines and cut off these links. The 400 bureaux-de-change operators and terror sponsors said to have been arrested by the Attorney-General of the Federation in May 2021 have neither been publicly identified nor tried. They should be arraigned without further delay.
State and community policing are vital to strengthening the security architecture, especially at the grassroots. Decentralised policing is essential to stop the mutation of terrorism. Governors should form and equip security units in the states. Strong, state and regional security agencies like Amotekun and Ebube Agu should be replicated in the North, while the existing ones in the South should be strengthened and well-armed.
The Federal Government should seek stronger assistance from other countries. Iraq and Syria could not defeat ISIS without external assistance. Ukraine cannot withstand Russia but for external help. Nigeria should secure maximum external assistance from friendly nations. Failure to take decisive action against terrorists threatens the fragile existence of the country.
The current single policing system in a federation guarantees insecurity. The National Assembly with the backing of the state governors should invoke the ‘doctrine of necessity’ and amend the 1999 Constitution to facilitate state policing. Further delay is dangerous.
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