Govenment sending wrong signals on insecurity, by Adekunle Adekoya

THE week ending today began with a harvest of horrific incidents: Three persons have been killed and two others abducted after armed men attacked mourners returning from a burial in Sati-Ikov council ward of the Ushongo Local Government Area of Benue State; while in neighbouring Plateau State, two persons were injured in  a fresh terror attack; while in Imo State, herders killed a motorcyclist and abducted his passenger, said to be a female student of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, FUTO.

That sounded like the terrorists were warming up. The following day, the tempo was dramatically raised: 50 persons were killed in Adamawa, Benue and Plateau states; while in Kogi State, an orphanage was raided and 23 children were abducted. Still, more stories of horror as gunmen stormed a community in Ilejemeje area of Ekiti State, killed a pastor and abducted worshippers during a church service.

Can it get worse than this? Since 2014, those of us in the business of news gathering and production have been writing headlines that depict gory incidents of insecurity as they occurred in various parts of our country, and I dare say, one is actually weary of these sad occurrences. Is there an end in sight? Will there be an end in sight? Can there be an end to this bloodbath?

Recall that last week’s edition of this column was on this same issue of insecurity, and I wondered whether we have not been condemned to living with insecurity forever the way we are living with poor electricity supply. I have a sickening, gut-wrenching feeling that next week will start and end with its gory litany of horrific insecurity incidents. This is because it is becoming widely accepted that there is no concrete plan of action to end this malaise once and for all.

Rather, the wrongest signals are being sent to all stakeholders in the Nigerian project and the outside world that normalcy is what we are experiencing, instead of the emergency situation that has happened on us, which has worsened since 2015. One of such wrong signals is the so-called re-integration of 774 repentant terrorists into society. That tells the others, still active in the nefarious business, that they can wage war against their fatherland and go scot free at the end of the day. It is like in the military, you pardon and promote a proven coup plotter.

Let me remind the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that on June 27, 2021, authorities of Puntland State in the north-eastern part of Somalia executed 18 Al-Shabaab militants in Galkayo, Mudug. The individuals, convicted by a military court, were responsible for numerous assassinations of community leaders, officials, and journalists. That is how terrorists are treated in serious countries. It is even more worrisome that trials and convictions of terror suspects are shrouded in much secrecy here.

Why? The evidence of their atrocities are there for all to see — burnt homes, deserted communities, ravaged farmlands, ruined business, vocations, and futures, including that thousands of displaced schoolchildren. As of January this year, no less than 3.7 million people have been displaced, forced to leave their ancestral homes and communities, abandon their occupations. Separated forcefully from the things they love to do which sustains them and are now living in internally-displaced persons, IDPs, camps strewn all over the country, particularly the North-East.

When the present administration started campaigning in 2022 with the slogan of Renewed Hope, I thought relief was in sight; I thought there will be put in place a plan of action that will end the scourge of insecurity such that fellow countrymen and women can once again sleep with two eyes closed, while normalcy returns to the lives of our farming populations. Alas, it is clear that alongside millions of other Nigerians, I had been gulled. No hope has been renewed in this respect.

As I am fond of saying, anybody who doesn’t know how to dance but finds him/herself on the dance floor should simply copy the footworks of the dancer next to him/her. In terms of security, who are we copying? Which country would we like Nigeria to be like in terms of security? Israel? Japan? Germany? Italy? Britain? The only help we are seeking from some of these foreign countries is to borrow money from them. Others who can help us out of this insecurity problem are being disillusioned by the way our leaders are handling issues.

One example in this regard is that of Mike Arnold, former Mayor of Blanco, Texas who in a briefing to the US Congress on April 22 titled “Nigeria at the Crossroads: The case for Action”, urged US law-makers to initiate action towards ending the killings in Nigeria. But when security agencies do not get the equipment they need, and you reintegrate all of 774 confirmed killers back into society, you are telling those who might have wanted to help not to bother. In fact, maybe this was what made Mike Arnold say in his Congressional briefing that: “Working with the Nigerian government to end the genocide is like working with the Third Reich to end the Holocaust.”

Now, that is heavy. Those interested in history know that the Third Reich, founded by Adolf Hitler, started in 1933 and ended in 1945. One of the problems that led to World War II was the state-sponsored extermination of peoples of some ethnic groups like Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs in extermination camps. Some notorious camps were Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Sobibor. Now, this characterisation by Arnold is worrisome; he left his listeners in no doubt that the government of Nigeria is complicit in the wanton killings of its citizens. As the late General Sani Abacha was quoted to have said: “If insurgency lasts beyond 24 hours, somebody in government knows about it.” My worry is that soon, this dark cloud of insecurity may envelope the whole country completely. Maybe then, just maybe, these politicians will sit up, and take the right action to excise this tumour. TGIF.

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