ON the pretext of tracking insurgents fleeing the military assault in the North-East and to check the dispersal of bandits, kidnappers and ethnic militia, the Nigerian Army says it is launching a nationwide operation that could effectively intrude on the right of Nigerians to free movement. According to the military authorities, the operation vetting citizens’ identification cards will not only fish out fleeing insurgents, but will also expose the criminal elements behind the country’s numerous security challenges.
The issue at stake is weighty and borders on the fundamental human rights of Nigerians to free movement; it raises fear of a nightmarish return to the oppression of an authoritarian regime. While nabbing the terrorists anywhere they are found is a justifiable objective, arbitrarily stopping Nigerians on the highways far from the war zone for identification without a justifiable cause is potentially dehumanising. In a country where only a relatively few have any means of identification, it is still unclear how this plan for random ID checks is going to work beyond subjecting Nigerians to the oppressive temperament of soldiers. Originally restricted to Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, the epicentre of terrorism in the country, Operation Positive Identification, which began a week ago, is expected to extend to the rest of the country by October.
This is outrageous, marking Nigeria’s rapid descent into despotism. President Muhammadu Buhari should intervene and put a stop to this attempt to limit the people’s freedom, an assault on the established democratic ethos and a return to military era repression. Already, there are widespread complaints of extortion, human rights violations and disruptions to itineraries by soldiers in the three states picked for the pilot stage. This is what happens in a country where the military has effectively hijacked civil security operations that are ordinarily the preserve of the police.
Sagir Musa, the Army spokesman, who also announced the revival of military operations such as Ayem Akpatuma, Crocodile Smile, Egwu Eke, said the Women Corps would stage “a robust show of force/confidence building patrols in some selected locations in Nigeria.” This is intimidating, painting the picture of a state that is under siege. What becomes of travellers in and out of major towns, who are frisked and asked to produce their ID cards? What if an accosted person does not have a means of identifying himself in a country where the National Identity Card Project has not gone far?
Locating insurgents, who have reportedly embedded themselves in local communities, should be through intelligence-gathering. Fighting and exterminating terrorists should be intelligence-led; outside of the theatre of insurgency, this is primarily the work of the police and the State Security Service, with military intelligence supporting. Twenty-two terrorist attacks were foiled in the United Kingdom between March, 2017 and September this year, the result of police and intelligence services working together, not by soldiers. A study by RAND Corporation listed 176 terrorist plots foiled in the United States through conventional law enforcement activities.
No doubt, a section of the country is facing serious security challenges, but, unwittingly, the message being telegraphed to the international community by this move is that the whole country is unsafe. France, the United States, India and other European countries that have suffered terrorist attacks have not unleashed soldiers on the highways to scrutinise the IDs of citizens. Already, Nigeria has slipped from the top three bracket to No.8 in Africa in the preferred destinations for foreign investment in the latest survey by RMB on investment in Africa. Nigeria also trails Egypt, South Africa and Morocco as a tourism destination, says the United Nations World Tourism Organisation’s 2018 report, and her $2 billion parts of the country in tourism receipts trailed the continent’s top three’s $12 billion, $9 billion and $8 billion respectively.
Besides, it also shows a lack of focus by a military that admits being overburdened by simultaneous engagement in counter-insurgency operations and law enforcement. So far, the military’s involvement in such duties can be traced to 33 states, sharing these with the police and the SSS. Let the military concentrate its operations on the North-East region, which can be rightly described as a war zone and gradually withdraw from other places.
Military involvement in combating crime has resulted in assault, extortion and even rape as was the case when a soldier was put on trial for allegedly raping a 300-level student of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State. In August, Nigerians were shocked when soldiers killed three police officers and a civilian, who were on a mission to arrest a suspected kidnap kingpin, Hamisu “Wadume” Bala. That case has yet to be resolved conclusively.
Two other incidents provoked outrage in Abia State when soldiers went wild in Aba, flogging men for wearing dreadlocks and tinting their hair. At a checkpoint, a lance corporal, Johnson Ajayi, attached to the Forward Operations Base, Ohanze tragically shot dead Chimaobi Nwogu over the refusal of the motorcyclist to part with a bribe. On internal security duties, soldiers are notorious for excesses such as harassing and brutalising motorists. On the pretext of securing the highways, they compound gridlock and extort money from commercial vehicle drivers.
The implications of the military’s overreach are frightening for basic freedoms and the right to free movement. The proposal is reminiscent of the notorious Pass Laws under the Apartheid regime in South Africa, which the white minority used to oppress and restrict the black majority to impoverished townships and rural areas.
Enough is enough. The constitution guarantees Nigerians the freedom of movement which is not subject to abridgement under any guise. As enshrined in the 1999 Constitution Part IV, Chapter 41, “Every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof…” The military is going far beyond its brief and we affirm strongly that soldiers are not trained, nor do they have the temperament, to have regular inter-face with civilians. Under the law and existing conditions, not even the police engage in indiscriminate identity scrutiny and this is the global standard.
Surrounded by enemies, subject to rocket and random terror attacks and on a permanent war-footing, yet, Israel does not deploy Israeli Defence Forces to harass citizens and foreigners alike outside the troubled border zones and occupied territories. Similarly, India, despite suffering horrific terrorist attacks, including the separate assassinations of two prime ministers (Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv), does not subject its citizens to such egregious military occupation tactics nationwide; nor does Egypt, though run by a military-backed government and assailed by terrorists and massive protests.
Buhari and his Defence Minister, Bashir Magashi, should order a halt to the insidious assault on Nigerians’ basic rights. There is an urgent need for greater cooperation and coordination among all the security agencies. Buhari should designate an effective coordination mechanism to drive the counter-terrorism war. The National Counter-Terrorism Policing Network is a coordinating agency for the UK’s police forces that work with the MI5 (the domestic intelligence agency) and other law enforcement and security services around the world to deal with terrorist threats. In the US, domestic counter-terrorism coordination is led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the overall oversight of the Director of National Intelligence. Civilian oversight is institutionally entrenched to the extent that military commandos assigned to kill or capture terrorists abroad are temporarily assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency, the civilian foreign intelligence service.
Though democracies have responded to the reality of terrorism and asymmetric insurgency with laws that sometimes intrude on privacy, enforcement is undertaken by civilian law officers who are trained to relate with civilians. Coordination of domestic security threats is also in the hands of police and civilian agencies. For insurgencies such as the Boko Haram menace, the military is rightly deployed to match force with greater force. This does not give the military the licence to operate like an army of occupation beyond the troubled region.
Ultimately, we must build formidable federal and state police forces to effectively undertake law enforcement; deploying soldiers to dislodge insurgents or cross border militants is one thing, but extending stop-and-search operations from the epicentre of terrorism to “bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers…and sundry crimes” should, however, be undertaken by a reformed and effective police. The government should train, equip, fund and decentralise the police to effectively secure the country. Military deployment to combat crime was meant to be temporary, while the government re-engineered the police. Twenty years of continuous military involvement is an anomaly and dangerous to the sustenance of democracy.
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