In Danko-Wasagu, Kebbi State, at least 88 persons were killed, while in Igangan, Oyo State, no fewer than 11 lives were lost. The story was the same in Zurmi, Zamfara State, where at least 30 persons were murdered. Sadly, there has been no news of arrests while several persons, including the traditional ruler of Igangan, have been displaced. Two days after the Amnesty statement, it was reported that terrorists killed over 54 people in Kadawa Village, Zamfara, even as residents claimed that due to the volatility of the village, they had to bury their loved ones in another town. The killings have continued despite the ‘no-fly zone’ ordered by the Federal Government over Zamfara’s airspace three months ago. Sadly, the bloodletting in the country has become commonplace such that the massacres are beginning to lose their shock value, clear evidence that Nigeria is becoming a banana republic.
Unsurprisingly, the Council on Foreign Affairs, a United States-based policy institute, a former American Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, and the President Emeritus of World Peace Foundation, Robert Rotberg, recently drew the ire of the Federal Government for describing Nigeria as a failed state. Campbell and Rotberg argued that under the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), many overlapping safety crises have remodelled Nigeria from a weak state right into a failed one. This is a widely held view.
Despite promises by the Federal Government, the insecurity has shown no signs of abating. First, a sharply divided and gruesomely violent country has emerged. On June 17, Reuters reported that gunmen killed a police officer and kidnapped at least 80 students and five teachers from the Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri, in Kebbi State, the third of such incidents in Nigeria in the last three weeks, bringing the total number of abducted students in less than seven months to over 1,200 in eight separate incidents. With such brazen acts taking place frequently, victims are forced to pay huge ransoms.
In the first quarter of 2021, 393 persons were killed and 926 others kidnapped in Kaduna State alone. Even with the military engaged in internal security operations in 34 states, 741 Nigerians were killed and over 1,000 others kidnapped in Q1 2021. Last week, the Emir of Zazzau (Zaria), Ahmed Bamalli, whose domain has suffered constant attacks by bandits, wondered how such acts of violence could be taking place in a city and a state known for having the highest number of military formations and training institutions in the country. “What is happening here in Zaria is so disturbing. In this emirate, we have the Police College in Kaduna. There is Police Children School in Karau-Karau here in Zaria. We have the Nigerian Military School. There is Depot Nigerian Army and Military Police Cantonment in Basawa here in Zaria. We have Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, where soldiers from different parts of the world come to train to gain promotion. There is an Air Force base in Kaduna and 1 Mechanised Division. It is only a naval formation that we don’t have in the emirate, because we don’t have water, yet we are this vulnerable,” he lamented.
If indeed, the security of lives and property is the primary goal of government, then, the Buhari regime has failed woefully. Amnesty had, at several times, urged the Federal Government to protect its citizens, following multiple attacks which have undermined the country’s sovereignty and economy, but the regime’s strategy has been uninspiring, ineffectual and largely uncoordinated. The removal of the last service chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police in January ought to have breathed new life into the war against insecurity but so far, things seem to have deteriorated, a clear indication that the issues are systemic.
For instance, reports say police officers – largely due to lack of adequate welfare – pay bribes to avoid being posted to the vulnerable rural areas that are desperately in need of security and opt for more ‘lucrative’ postings like providing security to VIPs despite repeated orders by the IG that policemen should stop exclusive offering protection to non-government officials. The result is that over 150,000 policemen are attached to VIPs and unauthorised persons in the country, while the current total number of officers is estimated at 370,000; which means about 40 per cent of the police are attached to private persons.
According to the AI, the government’s failure to protect people, especially in the rural areas, is largely responsible for these increased attacks by bandits and other criminal groups. It adds that research shows that the number of police officers available for policing duty is grossly inadequate. With the dearth of security officials, there are many ungoverned spaces in the country, which allow hoodlums to operate freely. The deployment of thousands of unarmed Special Constabulary Officers for community policing across the country six months ago has failed to reduce violent crimes. And what is particularly galling is the culture of denial that pervades the Buhari regime.
In the military, there have been fresh allegations of funds meant for weapons procurement being misappropriated, leaving the soldiers largely ill-equipped to engage insurgents and bandits effectively. A probe by the House of Representatives into arms procurement was abruptly cut short, while the President is set to forward a supplementary budget with a security component of N770.6 billion to the National Assembly.
As an immediate step to curb violent crimes, the President should declare a state of emergency on security and initiate genuine security reforms. But state police remain the best approach to addressing some of these challenges. In the absence of this, state governments that share boundaries and similar challenges should collaborate more effectively to tackle shared problems. Governor Nasir el-Rufai explained that when students are kidnapped in Kaduna State, they are sometimes moved to Niger State. In the case of the abduction of the Kankara schoolboys in Katsina State in December 2020, the pupils were moved to Zamfara State.
A stark indicator of a failing state is when a government loses the monopoly of force to criminals. As things stand, the Nigerian government seems to have lost control of the situation as insurgents, bandits and violent gangs are dictating the pace almost everywhere in the country. Nigeria’s failure will inevitably imperil its citizens and threaten its neighbours through refugee outflows.
To prevent the country from slipping into deeper anarchy, the real cause, which is the skewed, unproductive and misconfigured political structure, should be reformed immediately. There is simply no alternative to this reality.
Culled from the Punch News Nigeria
