NEARLY a year in the saddle, President Bola Tinubu seemingly has no security plan. Under him, Nigerians are being abducted, displaced, and massacred at will by non-state actors, a replay of the bloody eight years under his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari. The most vulnerable states are Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Kaduna, Benue, Kogi and the Federal Capital Territory. With the Tinubu administration indecisive, the breaches might soon spread southward.
Apart from economic hardship, Nigerians are dying needlessly and suffering mass abduction and loss of property to bandits. Some states in the North-West and North-Central began recording bloody attacks in the past two weeks again.
In Katsina, bandits reportedly abducted 80 villagers at Yar-Malamai, Faskari Local Government Area on Monday. A political leader said only six houses remained intact in the community. They looted shops and burnt houses and vehicles in the village after operating unhindered for 10 hours in broad daylight.
This is a glaring failure of Nigeria’s security architecture. The security agents are so weak and shorthanded that they and the people are easy prey for the bandits. The bandits had killed four soldiers in their camp in Faskari LGA a day earlier.
Beacon Security and Intelligence counted 2,583 killings in the first quarter under Tinubu. SBM Intelligence reported 4,777 abductions when Tinubu assumed office to May 2024, excluding the weekend abduction of 24 undergraduates of the Confluence University of Science and Technology in Kogi State. This is an epidemic. SBM recorded 3,620 abductions between September 2022 and September 2023.
Zamfara is also under siege from bandits. Women and children are the most vulnerable. The bandits, confident because of the weakness of the state, sacked 50 villages and kidnapped 500 persons there this week. They slaughtered five persons, including two police officers.
In March, bandits had murdered about 20 persons and kidnapped 100 others in the Birnin-Magaji LGA, per SBM.
Residents of Munya LGA in Niger suffered the same fate on Monday after bandits killed three villagers and abducted others. In Benue and Cross River states, inter-communal strife is claiming lives. Kaduna, Plateau, Taraba, and states in the North-East are not free from violence. This violence replicates itself in the South.
As the security breaches escalate, Tinubu is mostly missing, having just returned from an overseas trip while his house burns. The President does not visit these communities to gather first-hand information on the magnitude of the insecurity and therefore design strategies against the threats. This is a minus for him.
While campaigning, Tinubu had raised hopes of security. In his 80-page manifesto with a 10-point agenda in October 2022, “national security” stood out. For the traumatised Nigerians, this is a hollow slogan.
Nigeria is the only federal state without decentralised policing. To stem the carnage, Tinubu should bring the weight of his office to bear on the state police project by collaborating with the National Assembly to invoke the ‘doctrine of necessity.’ The policy can curb crime in rural areas presently being underserved.
The President should pick the low-hanging fruits by withdrawing the police officers illegally attached to VIPs, redeploying them to fieldwork, and establish a clear security plan against the insurgents; there should be a command centre. The centre should be equipped with technology to detect, monitor, and launch counterattacks.
The carnage is escalating in part because of the proliferation of arms, the security agencies should design a sustainable programme to mop up arms.
State governors are failing. In the North-West, they should ban the operation of motorcycles, the main means of transportation by bandits. Individually and collectively, states should form their security outfits pending the approval of state police.
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