Can Jonathan restore security?

By EMMANUEL OLADESU.

• Dr Jonathan

The greatest challenge confronting the country today is insecurity. It is taking its toll on households, churches, mosques, public and private institutions. The Federal Government appropriated huge sums in this year’s budget for the sector with little or nothing to show for it yet. Can President Goodluck Jonathan overcome the security challenges facing the country? Deputy Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU highlights stakeholders’ views on the protracted problem.

As huge smoke billowed from the fire lit by a  bomb blast, people ran helter-sketer in the ensuing general commotion. At war with innocent citizens are invisible hands who knew their terrain, mission and targets. In panic, people fled leaving their vehicles on the road. Those who were unlucky got trapped in the inferno, crying and agonising without redemption.  Those who were lucky to be rushed to nearby hospital are pronounced as having  slim chance of survival. This is the picture of the security situation in the country since January. It has been a vicious circle of disasters, confusion and pains in the northern part of the country.
Blood has been literally, flowing in the streets of Abuja, Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna, Suleja and Maiduguri. Lives have been lost and property, worth millions, destroyed. Apparently, there is no end in sight for this ugly development. No Nigerian is insulated from bomb explosion. Churches, mosques and corporate offices are not spared. 
In Lagos, former Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Alani Akinrinade, urged the government to find a solution, warning that Nigeria was about being assailed by urban guerilla. Across the country, the fear of Boko Haram sect has become the beginning of wisdom. 
The violence unleashed by Boko Haram has been perfectly complemented by armed robbery and ritual killings across the six geo-political zones.  Ethnic clashes and kidnapping are also rife. In Jos, capital of Plateau State, mass burial of victims of ethnic conflict led to more blood-letting on the spot. Now, members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) are rejecting postings to troubled spots with justification. On daily basis, there are cries of despondency and government appears to be helpless. 
Can the federal government restore security? What is responsible for all the sporadic bombings? Why has Jos remained a troubled spot? These are puzzles that seem to have no answers.
Last week, governors were at a crossroads. Although it is the north that is primarily under siege, southern governors could not turn their eyes away from the plight of their kinsmen who reside in these troubled spots. The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) proposed some measures. Taking a global look at the socio-economic and political realities that may underlie insecurity, it suggested a sort of ‘Marshall Plan’ to tackle the scourge of poverty and squalor ravaging the land. Some governors also reiterated their clamour for state police.
Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi, who spoke briefly with reporters in Abuja, said that state police was long overdue. He highlighted the numerous assistants given to state police commands by governors, including donation of vehicles, uniforms, housing, guns, and even, bullets. He said it is illogical that the state governors, who are chief security officers, have no control over the police.
Many reasons have been adduced for the state of insecurity ravaging the country. Some of them paled into conjectures. But there is no evidence that government has got any lead as well. There is a monotony of assurances of normalcy from the Police Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Abubakar and Chief of Defence Staff Air Vice Marshall  Olu Petinrin. To their consternation, the suicide bombers seem to have dwarfed security agents.
There have been rumours that the north is aggrieved that the Presidency has stayed too long in the south, contrary to agreement. Recently, former Security Adviser Gen. Patrick Aziza attributed the security problem to the Peoples Democratic Party’s  (PDP) zoning arrangement, which was jettisoned during the last presidential election. His remark caused a stir. Few weeks after, he was shoved aside.
Others have argued that it was part of a clandestine plan by the ‘butchers of Nigeria’ to wipe out non-natives and adherents of other faiths. Taking exception to this, foremost commentator, Mallam Mohammed Haruna corrected the erroneous impression that the Boko Haram sect was waging a religious war against Christians alone, adding that Muslims are more casualties. He said the violence unleashed by the group has created strains on the economy of Northern Nigeria, emphasising that Boko Haram is a threat to all Nigeria. 
He lamented that the media has been subjective in their reports of the conflict, complaining that reports were laced with anti-northern sentiments. Haruna also pointed out that the fear of Boko Haram has made governments to violate the rights of some Nigerians under the guise that they are suspects.  The affected citizens, he said, are languishing in jail.
The chairman of Nigerian Guild of Editors, Mr. Gbenga Adefaye, urged reporters to avoid labeling and sentiments. If these are avoided, he counselled, misinformation would be avoided and tension reduced to the bearest minimum.
An expert, Col. Gabriel Ajayi, who reflected on the security challenges facing the country at a recent birthday lecture in honour of Prof. Wole Soyinka in Lagos, berated the lip service being paid to security right from colonial days. He argued that security projections were limited to securing those in power, while the citizens are left in the wilderness of hope and despair.
“We had that example in Governor Glover and his eight-man soldier. Since colonial masters came and destroyed the tribes, there has been a disconnect between native security and modern security. The security then was to sustain colonial masters in power, using indigenes as soldiers”, he  recalled. 
He added that since then, Nigeria has failed to develop a security system to sustain its socio-economic and political development.
Ajayi, who covered the Agbekoya uprising as a reporter in 1969, lamented that, under the indigenous rulers, security was also tackled with aloofness and treated as a no-go area. Even, Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa deliberately ignored warnings that a coup was about to depose or kill him.
“Military came and put up security system for tenure survival. It was the climax of the ‘Glover Syndrome’ of using the people to keep the people under bondage”, he stressed.  
Ajayi could not properly dissect the dreadful sect, Boko Haram. But he acknowledged that the insurgency resembled a campaign of unidentified people who cannot be properly traced; a people who treat everywhere as no man’s land. The retired soldier compared deaths resulting from Boko Haram activities to the ones attributed to the carnage on bad roads, resulting from what he called siege on the people by government.
Adefaye was of the view that conflicts have multi-dimensional causes. He said since Nigerians  endorsed democracy in 1999, threats to popular rule should be averted.  The media executive urged government to tap from past experiences in dealing with insecurity. “What is the difference between the crisis in Jos and Ife/Modakeke crisis, Amulieri and Agulieri crisis, or Junkun crisis? How were these resolved?”, he asked.
Adefaye believed that poverty, poor education and bad leadership were precursors to any crisis. The solution, he said, is good leadership.
But Ajayi canvassed other solutions. One of them is the marriage of native security and modern security to meet the needs of contemporary times. “We need military operation to go with psychological operations, whereby, as we are employing force, we are also promoting the welfare of people by providing roads, hospitals, employment and other amenities”, he stressed.
In his reckoning, the liberalisation of the security system is also long overdue. Ajayi frowned at the rigidity of the current system, saying that it is counter-productive. “We need state police”, he said.
The suggestion tallied with the advice given by a lawyer, Mr. Kola Awodein (SAN). At a previous lecture on true federalism and restructuring of the polity in Lagos, he said Nigeria should copy the policing methods of federal countries which are tailored towards community policing based on the police knowledge and understanding of the peculiar security needs of the local areas.
A journalist, Patrick Opoze, who aligned with this view, urged the government to uplift the current standard of policing. “Policemen lack manpower, training and equipment and this should not be so”.
Also, the Ajayi, who called for a one year compulsory military training for graduates,  supported the clamour for a Sovereign National Conference (SNG), arguing that, “unless we have it, we cannot stand in brotherhood”. 
In fact, some security experts contend that the ethnic nationalities expected to send representatives to the conference can assist in stemming bombings. Former Director of Military Intelligence (DMI) Brig-General Ibrahim Sabo (rtd)  urged the federal government to seek their support  in the arduous task of restoring national security. The retired General declared that insecurity and all forms of insurgency have their roots in the neglect of the legitimate yearnings and expectations of the government of the day.
“Insurgency and militancy and other forms of uprisings or group protests against constituted authorities occur most of the time because peaceful and genuine aspirations of groups of people are disregarded over long periods. Armed rebellion does not occur over night anywhere in the world. Resort to violence is often times after peaceful protests and requests have been ignored for unjustifiably long periods”, Sabo said..
Speaking at a lecture titled: “Roadmap to National Peace and Sustainable Democracy”,  organised by the Coalition of Ethnic nationalities of Nigeria (CENN), Sabo, who was represented by Col. Olu Majoyegbe (rtd), recalled that militancy in the Niger Delta was nipped in the bud, following the strategic intervention of the late President Umaru Yar’adua’s administration. He lamented that the culture of respecting the views of ethnic blocs and groups propagating legitimate causes, have not been sustained in the country.s
He maintained that “the best groups to articulate such group demands are those today derisively referred to as ethnic nationalities”, adding that “government ought to as a matter of policy engage genuine ethnic national groups as effective partners in the arduous task of nation-building”.
Sabo said, if this is done, “the emergence of militants, insurgents and separatists would become unlikely with the high level of equity and justice such a policy would engender”. 
 “Government working in synergy with ethnic nationality groups will create such an atmosphere of fairness, equity and common destiny that would eliminate armed opposition to government, thus eliminating the security challenges, which may tear the nation apart in the future”, he added.
Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) leader Dr Fredrick Fashehun,  lamented that Boko Haram sect has unleashed terror on too many people. He  urged the sect to thread the path of reason. 
“We must live together in peace and harmony. If one day, however, the different entities decide to go their separate ways, they must kiss and say goodbye peacefully. But a handful of angry people, even if their anger can be justified, cannot force that decision down the throat of 160 million Nigerian citizens.
“I invite our brothers in Boko Haram to sheathe their swords. They have made their point. We understand Boko Haram’s anger. Not all conflict is evil. However, Boko Haram runs the danger of laying a precedent that, if replicated by other interests in the country, can easily reduce Nigeria to a banana republic, Rwanda and Somalia”, Fasehun added.