Insecurity: FG and some stressful conversations

WITH just a peep into the Nigerian political landscape, you will easily notice that the Federal Government is in the middle of stressful conversations regarding the management of the country’s security architecture. The citizens are worried, just like some government officials. Though the situation has yet to reach the level of Things Fall Apart, or a point we can call the dialogue of the deaf, the stress is already taking its toll on some government structures.

The Harvard Business Review on Communication described stressful conversations as sensitive exchanges that can hurt or haunt us in ways no other kind of talking does. Holy Weeks, who provided insights on this subject matter, submitted that “these conversations call up embarrassment, confusion, anxiety, anger, pain, or fear-if not in us, then in our counterparts.”

Here is HBR On Conversation’s take on this matter: “We live by talking. That’s just the kind of animal we are. We chatter and tattle and gossip and jest. But sometimes–more often than we’d like–we have stressful conversations, those sensitive exchanges that can hurt or haunt in ways no other kind of talking does.”   

Without doubt, the Nigerian system has been undergoing some stress on the security front in recent years. In recent months, the issue came to a head when the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, declared Nigeria a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ on account of the lack of religious freedom. Some government officials have had to weigh in on this matter, with many of them achieving varying degrees of success, failure, or hurt as the people would have it. Some of such conversations are the subject matter of our discourse today. Of particular interest here is that statement by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume, in the wake of the CPC declaration. Another is that of former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the insecurity concern, as well as the response from the presidency, credited to Sunday Dare.

Akume, speaking on November 20, dismissed America’s classification of the happening in Nigeria as Christian Genocide, while chastising some citizens, who he said have been exaggerating the situation to take advantage for personal reasons. He rejected President Trump’s framing of the Nigerian situation as “Christian genocide,” while insisting that the Bola Tinubu administration was taking steps to tackle the situation. According to Akume, tackling insecurity demands stronger international support, especially from a country like the United States, adding that Nigeria values its strategic relationships with the United States. He also stated that the CPC classification had emboldened the insurgents and bandits, apparently referring to the kidnapping incidents in Kebbi and Kwara States in the wake of the CPC declaration.

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) would, however, not toe the line of Akume. Indeed, comments on several digital platforms condemned the conversation from the SGF, with some saying that if he didn’t have anything to say, it would have been better to keep quiet. The ADC, which spoke through its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, described Akume’s claim as an “amateurish deflection and shameless attempt to abdicate responsibility by the APC-led Federal Government.”

Abdullahi said: We find it quite appalling that the APC-led Federal Government now claims its security failures are caused by a tweet by the President of another country. This is a shameful abdication of responsibility, a confirmation that the Tinubu government is overwhelmed by the security situation in the country and is clueless about how to go about solving it.’ ADC said for years under the APC administration, ‘Nigerians have suffered horrific massacres, mass abductions, and assaults on schools and worship centres. This situation has worsened with each passing year, particularly under the current administration, as the bandits and terrorists get more emboldened by the government’s failure to respond appropriately.”

He further submitted that those involved in the crime of kidnapping and killing didn’t need to be instigated by Trump, because they were already actively encouraged by “a government that consistently fails to act decisively to stop the carnage, a government that is, even after nearly three years in office, still celebrating its electoral victory while the country is turned to a killing field.”

While speaking at the Plateau State Unity Christmas Carol and Praise Festival held in Jos, the Plateau State capital, on November 29, former President Olusegun Obasanjo rejected calls for negotiations with bandits and insisted that Nigeria must take decisive action as well as embrace international assistance to deal with the situation.

Obasanjo told the Federal Government to stop apologising and negotiating with terrorists. He said: “No matter what religion you belong to. No matter where you come from. No matter your profession, we Nigerians are being killed, and our government seems to be incapable of protecting us.

 “We are part of the world community. If our government cannot do it, we have the right to call on the international community to do for us what our government cannot do for us.”

The former Nigerian leader added, “Before I left the government, I knew we had the capacity to pick up anybody in Nigeria who commits a crime anywhere. The capacity we didn’t have then was after identifying and locating such a criminal, we couldn’t apprehend him without moving on land or by air.

 “Now we have capacity. With drones, we can sleeve them up. You can take them out. Why are we not doing that? Why are we apologising? Why are we negotiating?”

For many Nigerians, the comments were highly welcomed. His statement did not in any way fall into the category of stressful conversations, especially in the ears of many Nigerians. But those comments amounted to hurt, embarrassment, and stress in the dictionary of the government. So, days after Obasanjo’s homily, the Presidency came out with a smoking gun (so to speak), looking for the retired general, an ebora (spirit) in all ramifications. But as we all know that it is impossible to gun down a spirit, Obasanjo’s admonitions have continued to ring louder than the Presidency’s vituperations.

In the reckoning of Nigeria’s Presidency, Obasanjo was merely grandstanding, because according to the government, insurgency took root under the former president’s watch.  President Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, in a post on X titled, “Between Tinubu’s capability and the ignobility of pseudo statesmanship,” declared that Obasanjo’s submissions in Jos should not be seen as acts of statesmanship, because, according to Dare, terrorism took root under his watch.

 Dare wrote: “This administration will not be distracted by selective amnesia wrapped in elder-statesmanship, nor will it allow those who midwifed Nigeria’s early security failures to rewrite history. Recent comments by a former President and a few habitual presidential aspirants attempting to paint the Tinubu administration as ‘unable to protect Nigerians’ are not merely hypocritical but ignoble. They ignore the hard truth: Nigeria is facing terrorists — all of them — by every definition, be they international, regional, or local.

“Yet the very individuals who looked away when these threats first sprouted now want to sit in judgment. Nigerians know better.

“The suggestion that Nigeria should effectively subcontract its internal security to foreign governments is not statesmanship; it is capitulation. Before recommending surrender, the former President should reflect on what he failed to do when these terrorists first began organising under his watch.”

The former president has spoken, the presidency has replied; it is left to Nigerians to determine which is soulful and heart-warming and which is hurtful, fearful, confusing, and capable of creating anger and pain, if not in us, but in our counterparts/compatriots, in line with the definition of stressful conversations.

Reactions from the public sphere have, however, been unmistakable–not a few Nigerians agree with Obasanjo–a family head cannot keep feeding his family with excuses each time hunger strikes.

First, the stewardship of President Olusegun Obasanjo is out there for all to see. The man has documented his service in many books, but the purveyor of undeniable truth has archived his successes and failures. They are there at the push of a button. It would be strange for an incumbent government to serve the claim that terrorism incubated under a previous administration as an excuse for escalating insecurity under its watch. That alibi can only subsist among some pepper-souping allies. It is on record that Obasanjo demolished Odi, in Bayelsa State, to retaliate for the killing of some security operatives. Rightly or wrongly, his government also attacked Zaki Biam in Benue State over the killing of some soldiers. Even if some outrage followed those incidents, it was clear to all that the government of then-President Obasanjo was, through the actions, some people saw as high-handed, sending signals to would-be terrorists or bandits that it would not be involved in monkey business where the security of the nation was concerned.

An excuse, such as terrorism incubated under Obasanjo, won’t jell with Nigerians because the man in Ota has left no one in doubt that he is a Nigerian patriot. He proved that by fighting the war of the Civil War, and has remained committed to issues of nationalism ever since. It may be true that politicians incubated what metamorphosed into the Boko Haram insurgency and terror of today around early 2,000, but many of the actors are still influential in today’s Nigerian system. How do you blame Obasanjo for that?

What Nigerians need at this point are not excuses or a blame game. What the people want are clear pathways to securing Nigeria. The government must find a way to deal with the root cause of the evil, rather than window dressing in the security network. The government of the day must also be able to rein in the politicians, whose stock in trade is to keep a madman at home because of the madman on the street. Very important!