How to curb growing insecurity, by stakeholders

The major challenge confronting Nigeria today is insecurity. Deputy Editor RAYMOND MORDI sought the views of stakeholders on how to tackle the monster.

SECURITY has become the biggest issue in the land, following the national outcry that greeted the killing of Mrs. Funke Olakunri, daughter of Afenifere leader Pa Reuben Fasoranti, and similar developments. In a veiled reference to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and other prominent citizens who had criticised the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s handling of the situation, President Buhari had accused his critics of politicising what he described as isolated incidents of insecurity.

Respondents said the surge of kidnapping and killings by bandits, especially in the Northwest, coupled with the resurgence of a Boko Haram faction affiliated to the radical Islamic State in West Africa poses a threat to national cohesion and peaceful co-existence of Nigerians. The country appears to be facing unprecedented security challenges. What started as a money-making scheme about 15 years ago in the Niger Delta, with the kidnapping of oil workers, has spread to other parts of the country. Syndicates have also been taking a leaf out of Boko Haram’s books by using the tactics of the Islamist militants to raid whole communities on motorcycles.

Second Republic politician Alhaji Tanko Yakassai said President Buhari must rejig the security architecture, to bring in fresh ideas to tackle the problem. His words: “From all indications, all the ideas that Buhari had to tackle the security situation in the country before he came to power have been exhausted. Members of his security team have also exhausted all their ideas too. Now, as an elected president he has to stay, but I would suggest that he should think of reconstituting his security team, to bring in more ideas. A new team would come up with fresh ideas.”

Yakassai said it is a source of concern to everybody, because whenever the security of the country is unwholesome, the country is in trouble. He said: “Everybody is jittery now, because the future looks bleak. When the current government came into power, the main security challenge facing the nation was the Boko Haram insurgency, but now it has escalated. We now have in addition banditry, kidnapping and ransom taking and clashes between herders and farmers.

“All these are issues of great concern to the nation and wherever there is a security challenge, nobody will sleep with both eyes closed. But, I don’t see the country going into blazes, just because of these security challenges. This is because people still move about freely; they go to the markets to buy and sell, to the airport or wherever they want to go.”

The National Chairman of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Chief Chekwas Okorie, said tackling the security challenges requires a concerted effort, because it is something one organ of government cannot do single-handedly. His words: “Every Nigerian should not only show concern, but begin to participate in restoring some kind of confidence in our country, because agents of destabilisation, agents of disintegration have multiplied and they are both at the highest strata of the society and the lowest, and that is very disturbing.

“But, what will douse the tension is the idea of convoking a national conference as urgently as possible. I know that many people are referring to the 2014 conference, but because the right steps were not taken in doing so and coupled with the fact that even the people that organized it did not implement even the administrative part of it, it will not work. Besides, since the membership of the conference was one-sided, it would be better for President Buhari to convoke another one.

“No amount of money spent to douse tension and calm frayed nerves would be too much, so that other government programmes can be pursued with minimum distraction. Most of the people who are busy demonizing this president and not seeing anything good in his administration, no matter the good intentions, will be kept busy at that conference; let them go there and proffer what they consider as solutions to Nigeria’s problems and leave the president to concentrate on governance.

“I don’t know the way the president feels, but, to me, the distraction is too much. I don’t know how he is going to concentrate on governance effectively with the polity being heated up daily. Some of the political rabble rousers who have sound opinions can all be moved from their different constituencies and ethno-cultural organisations to a conference hall. They would stay there for some months to do the job. By the time they finish, some kind of sanity will return to the country.

“But, right now, it is so tense and people are capitalizing on it, creating the impression that Nigeria may not survive for long.”

Former Director General of the State Security Service (SSS), otherwise known as the Department of State Services (DSS), Afakriya Gadzama, believes inaccurate and dishonest reports from security agencies to the President may be part of the reasons why the country’s security challenges are yet to be surmounted. Speaking recently at the National Institute for Security in Abuja recently, Gadzama said President Buhari must secure alternative feedback channels, to get a broader perspective of the problems bedeviling the country’s progress.

The former DSS Director General said the true cause of insecurity in Nigeria is bad governance. He said: “For whatsoever reason, they feel shy and don’t tell the truth about the actual situation on the ground, because the threats in those states are mainly as a result of bad governance, misuse of government resources and public funds. In some of these states, the local governments have virtually collapsed and the government is not being told this. We could also see this at the higher level…”

Okorie however does not agree that the president requires alternative feedback channels. His words: “Every president has his own approach to governance. There are people who can withstand numerous opinions coming from here and there and there are those who will regard that as pressure. After all, it is said that too many cooks spoil the broth. So, when you get so many opinions around one man, it tends to confuse the person.

“But, since the president has ministers, special advisers and what you call kitchen cabinet, which meets every week, he has all the advice he can get. So, a minister will come to the weekly meetings with an opinion outside the core mandate of his ministry. The outcome of such weekly meetings should be sufficient for the president to deliver.”

Nevertheless, the UPP national chairman agrees that Nigeria is in dire straits and that it has reached a proportion that is getting everybody worried about the stability of our country, owing to its multi-dimensional nature. He said: “The situation is very, very dire. It is worse in some parts of the country, but it is all over the country. There is no person who is patriotic citizen who will claim ignorance of it and who will not show concern.

“Nigeria has come under close watch by the international community and some of the major nations are beginning to caution their citizens about travelling to Nigeria and movement within the country. It is not something that anybody can pretend doesn’t exist.”

Okorie said government is already deploying technology, “as has been suggested, but we need more hands to tackle this menace, especially within the police force”. He added: “The issue of community policing should be taken more seriously, so that every citizen would become a police man or informant at the same time. The military can be involved in aspects of insurgency, but when it comes to kidnapping, robbery and other internal security problems, it remains within the purview of the police.

“So, the police needs to be equipped. They need to be re-organised and decentralised, to accommodate community policing. This should be done within the short term; as quickly as possible. Technology can be very urgently procured, if we don’t have them already.”

He said state governors must also be involved in the search for a holistic solution to the problem. He said: “Governors usually take away a large chunk from the state’s treasury as security votes and the security votes are hardly accounted for. So, instead of occasionally buying vehicles and making a show of it, when donating them to the police, the security votes can be deployed quickly to immediately put in place a vigilance group, even if you don’t call it community police.

“A vigilance group worked in Anambra State under former Governor Chris Ngige. It also worked in Abia. So, it can work all over the country. With it, some kind of employment would be created at the community level. With the money they are collecting as security votes, governors can also engage traditional rulers beyond inviting them for meetings and giving them matching orders. They should be empowered to convene regular meetings with their people, to watch out for strange faces in their midst.

“All that can be the contribution of state governors, before the government at the centre comes up with a detailed arrangement on community policing.”

Okorie said said devolution of powers is necessary at this point in time, to bring governance closer to the people. He said powers devolution of powers is a vital component of federalism and that even President Buhari has acknowledged in one of his recent published statements, when he said there is need for true federalism at this point in time. “But, this may take a little bit of time, because when you talk of devolution of powers, you are talking of reducing most of the items in the Exclusive List and moving them to the Concurrent List; so that is a major constitutional amendment,” he said, adding that it can be accomplished through a national conference.

A communiqué by Prof. Pat Utomi, Mr Donald Duke, Dr Kunle Olajide, Prof. Anthony Kila and Mr. Olawale Okunniyi, on behalf of a group of concerned citizens urged governments at all levels to commence public conversation on state, local  and community policing towards curbing and neutralizing the present state of insecurity.

While condemning in unequivocal terms the reported murder of innocent Nigerians across the country by bandits and terrorists, the concerned citizens under the umbrella of Project Nigeria Movement, the Patriots and the Pro-National Conference Organisations (PRONACO) called on President Buhari, as the chief security officer to take measures to secure the country and to put in place a serious security machinery “to fish out the criminal invaders and murderers, whoever they are, and to make them pay for their ungodly acts in the interest of justice and peace”.

The civil society groups, led Prof. Ben Nwabueze (SAN), Chief Emeka Anyaokwu, Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, General Alani Akinriade, Solomon Asemota, Obong Victor Attah, Prof Kimse Okoko among others, met in Lagos recently to address the current threatening insecurity.