Insecurity in Nigeria, threat to national unity ― CDD director

Nigeria’s unity is gradually being threatened by the replete incidences of insecurity in different parts of the country, Director, Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), Idayat Hassan, has said.

The proponent of good governance also said the nation’s political elite must accept without any form of bias, political or otherwise prognosis of the root cause of the nation’s insecurity and act accordingly.

She said while the year 2020 offers the nation a better prospect and analysis of the phase of violence and criminality in the country since 1999, it must be taken into consideration by political leaders and government official to have it neutralised through good governance.

Hassan, who spoke in an interview with Tribune Online in Abuja, said internal conflicts have metamorphosed from ethnic self-determination struggle laced with criminality to outright criminality in the form of banditry in all parts of Nigeria.

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She said the government must not tolerate criminality especially the spate of kidnappings that have become commonplace in all parts of the country in what appeared to be an affront on the nation’s security agencies.

According to her: “Note the streams of criminality. We have come under attacks of rural banditry by bandits who move from one rural community to the other to attack, assault, steal and cart away with people’s valuables.

“It has become entrenched in Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina. While that rages, the issue of herders and farmers has also constituted serious security concerns for all well-meaning being.

“Agreed, it started as contestation over natural resources by farmers and herders whose path have always crossed on issues like this. This contestation was done in the same way it was previously declined, which is resources control which was for natural resources in the Niger Delta, South-South region of Nigeria.

“Now contestation is over land and water. Land and water are obviously affecting the herders and of course, the farmers and this is also seen from the prism of religion, because herders are supposedly Muslims which is totally correct and farmers are supposedly Christians, which is also not necessarily correct.

“There is the criminality aspect I mentioned earlier. It knows nobody, kidnappers and bandits operate in different parts of the country, aside from the Islamic extremists.

“What this has done, is that it has seriously threatened national unity,” Hassan stated.