EL-RUFAI ON FRIDAY
Sleeping With Both Eyes Opened!
Earlier this year, when this column stated
that the Federal Government was spending over two billion naira every
day (including weekends) on security without corresponding results, the
State Security Service (SSS) made a fuss of arresting and detaining me
for ‘incitement’ - a funny basis for infringement of a citizen's right
indeed since the colonial era offence of sedition has been declared
ultra vires our Constitution! But since that article was
published, what has changed? Instead of an improvement, the security
situation is evidently getting worse. Last week, the United Nations
Headquarters in Abuja was attacked with a loss of over twenty lives.
This week, an Eid ground was attacked in Jos, Plateau State, with the
loss of about 50 lives and over 200 vehicles belonging to the worshipers
burnt.
So for the second week in succession, this
column is focusing not on policy analysis to further our debate on
issues, but on yet another burning national issue: Insecurity. We also
need to ask government why, despite the huge budgetary provisions for
security – at the Federal, state and local government levels, most
Nigerians are now forced to sleep with ‘both eyes open’ - assuming that
unemployment, hunger and poverty will allow the majority to sleep at
all.
Since October 1, 2010, when the
Independence Day celebrations were disrupted by bomb blasts claimed by
the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), amid claims
and counterclaims between Henry Okah and the Presidency, we have
witnessed a spate of bomb blasts across the country with heavy loss of
lives and property. The most audacious attack was on the Force
Headquarters in Abuja from which the Inspector General of Police only
narrowly escaped. If any doubts remained about how unsafe Nigeria had
become, last week’s bombing of the UN Headquarters in Abuja was a bold
statement: No one is safe.
But the deteriorating state of security
didn’t happen overnight. After the ‘Christmas Day’ attempted terrorist
attack aboard a US bound airliner by a Nigerian in December, 2009, the
American government blacklisted Nigeria alongside Somalia, Sudan, and
Afghanistan. That incident had very negative effects on our already
battered image. Perhaps because of the power vacuum created by President
Yar'Adua's 'disappearance', our leadership had no immediate, coherent
response to the unfair label, then. We are not in that situation
anymore.
But what has the Nigerian government done
since then to address local and international security concerns? Is the
attitude that human lives in Nigeria are no longer precious? Or is it
that some human lives are valued higher than others depending on
politics, geography, ethnicity or religion? Are we not on the road to
state failure?
Dr. Pauline Baker, the
President of The Fund for Peace (www.fundforpeace.org)
defines a failed state as one where:
‘violence
is erupting predominantly within societies in which the state - the
central locus of authority and power - is disintegrating. These states
may be losing political legitimacy in the eyes of their people because
of repression, rigged elections, corruption, political exclusion,
economic decline or a coup d’état.
They
may be losing their monopoly on the use of force, confronting private
militias, warlords, drug cartels, organized crime, secessionists or
armed rebellions.
Failing states
cannot sustain essential public services, promote equitable economic
growth or provide for the public welfare. They do not maintain domestic
tranquility or provide for the common defence. They are dysfunctional
polities - in large part because they are institutionally incompetent’.
Clearly, many of
these words resonate with the current state of our nation.
As things
stand, Nigeria is now confronted with the real and present danger of
becoming a Failed State. Please do not take
my words for this assertion;
since 2005, The Fund for Peace, (a US based think tank) and the magazine
Foreign Policy, have published an annual index called the
Failed States Index. In the Failed State Index Data for 2011,
Nigeria is ranked 14th most likely state to fail out of 177 countries.
We were ranked 15th in
2010, so slipped one rank under President Jonathan's watch. Placed in
proper perspective, Nigeria now ranks just ahead of Pakistan and Yemen
in 12th and 13th positions respectively, but considerably worse than
Liberia and Sierra Leone that are ranked 26th and 30th! The latter being
countries that are emerging from civil wars, where we had played the big
brother role of peace keepers; yet we can hardly safeguard the lives and
property of an average Nigerian back home.
It is noteworthy to
emphasise that Nigeria was NOT in the danger zone of being a failed
state when the Index was first published in 2005; only to witness a
rapid deterioration ever since from the then 54th in 2005 to
17th in 2007, to the current 14th position. So, how did we get here; so
fast? Why has government failed to tackle the group? And while attention
is centred on Boko Haram, what about the spates of communal clashes,
armed robbery and environmental disasters like the recent floods in
Lagos and Ibadan, that result in loss of precious Nigerian lives every
day?
A careful analysis of the components that
make up the index score indicate that election rigging, internal
displacement of peoples, poor delivery of social services, and the
demographic explosion account for some of the deterioration. Most of it
though points to ineffective governance at all levels, and the
monetization and politicization of our domestic security.
The security of Nigeria is too important
for government to play politics with: the Boko Haram phenomenon did not
start under President Jonathan’s tenure, and any suggestion that the
attacks are calculated to undermine his administration is simply not
true. The transformation of the group from a fringe, largely peaceful
sect into a full-fledged terrorist group remains one of President
Yar’adua’s legacies. The late president gave the directive to ‘crush
them’ in 2009 before jetting out to Brazil. The brutal assault on the
group and subsequent extra-judicial murder of its leader and many others
by the police transformed the group into a full-scale terror and revenge
machine! And initially they attacked the police and state government
targets within the North East of Nigeria, that they considered the
enemy. Nothing was done to nip this in the bud in a proactive and
thoughtful way. Now, everyone is a potential victim of this terror.
The proposal for an amnesty for the group
similar to that offered to the Niger Delta militants has not been
articulated, perhaps in recognition of the fact that the root causes of
the two conflicts and motivation of the actors are not exactly the same.
As it were, the Amnesty Programme which has N99 billion budgetary
allocation in the 2011 Appropriation Act has not entirely solved the
problem of militancy in the Niger Delta. Based on the budget and the
number of militants, government proposes to spend over N3 million per
militant per annum. Are some people not using the Amnesty Programme to
as a gravy train on the one hand and short-change the ex-militants on
the other?
But all of that aside, the attack on the
UN building in Abuja has exposed how unprepared and unskilled Nigerian
security agencies are in preventing terror attacks or dealing with the
aftermath. Reports indicate that the US Federal Investigation Bureau
(FBI) has taken over the investigations into the UN bombing while
sidelining the Nigerian Police and SSS. In an organized environment,
security should be hinged on intelligence gathering and be technology
driven, instead, our police and soldiers rely on manual physical
checking of passengers and motorists on roads and entrances to detect
bombs and other explosives.
Available information indicate that there
were about 8 armed anti-riot policemen at the inner gate of the UN
building when the suicide bomber forced his way into the building and
detonated his deadly cargo. But then, how can the intelligence gathering
mechanisms succeed when the military are using such heavy-handed
tactics, killing and raping innocent citizens? This government has also
demonstrated a knack for turning around and blaming those who offer to
help; in the aftermath of the violence after last April’s elections,
government accused Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of not speaking out. The moment
he condemned the violence and appealed for calm, the same government and
its attack dogs turned around and attempted to blame the General for the
violence.
There is hardly a family in Maiduguri that
has not lost a member, killed not only by Boko Haram, but more likely by
the Nigerian police and military who still remain in the city, killing
and raping. How can intelligence gathering work in such an atmosphere of
mistrust? President Jonathan missed a golden opportunity to moderate the
crisis when some Borno elders asked him to withdraw soldiers from the
state. A more pragmatic leadership would have listened to the elders and
tasked them on finding a peaceful solution. Jonathan preferred the
military option, but despite two full scale military assaults in 2009
and this year, the group has demonstrated that it is capable of hitting
at will. Obviously, there cannot be a military solution to what is in
reality a breakdown of social cohesion and trust in the government.
After the UN attack, the Police and
the Presidency issued another stale, futile and ineffectual threat of
fishing out the culprits, their sponsors and bringing them to justice.
We have heard that over and over and the public is fed up with such
rhetoric. So we must ask government: how long shall Nigerians continue
to sleep with both eyes open? Are there no emergency measures within the
purview of the law that could be adopted since the security challenge
appears to have overwhelmed government? Is the Federal Government still
ruminating over how to secure the lives and property of all citizens?
It would be wishful thinking to imagine
that Nigeria would be among the 20 biggest economies in the world in the
year 2020 without even the most basic form of security of lives and
property. The earlier the government realizes that its indecision and
inactivity is costing the lives of Nigerians, scaring off investment and
weakening our national cohesion, the better. The situation we have found
ourselves requires the best of statesmanship and thoughtfulness, not
petty politics or trading blames of any kind.
If government cannot provide Nigerians
with good roads, better health infrastructure, stable electricity, and
functional schools, the very least it can do is to give us a sense of
security. It is the number one duty of any responsible government.
No more and no less.
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