Insecurity: Why is Nigeria the attractive destination in Africa?

Last week, I raised some questions for the attention of our security chiefs, especially the Chief of Army Staff and the Inspector General of Police. Even now, the pot of questions is not drying up yet, though those concerned have left the earlier ones unattended to, whether at open or close quarters.

As far as security is concerned here, it’s looking like the more you ponder, the more confused you are.  It’s like the Yoruba saying which indicates that when your cloth is not free of lies, your fingernails won’t be free of bloodstains; the challenge of insecurity has continued to stare us in the face.

Shagari did not score 12 2/3 in 1979 —Olunloyo •‘Why my mother was my ‘Chief Security Officer’’

That is also understandable. Security is what everyone has got to be a member of the society. It is what distinguishes the state and a sane society from the state of nature. It is the guarantee of existence of lives and property, as superintended by the sole coercive authority-the government, to whom everyone is subjected. In the aftermath of the surrender of individual strengths and power to that authority, the fittest and the weak can cohabit. The safety guarantees are further enhanced by the rule of law, which emphasises equality before the law.

Some would argue whether we are really equal before the law. They would have their reasons. In Nigeria, the big man can bend the law and get his feel.  The hunter can become the haunted in the hands of some law enforcement agents. But still, the rule of law subsists. Ask those who seek elective offices. Election is a leveler and a good example of that acclaimed equality before the law. It is funny, but you and your employers have a vote each on Election Day.

During the last general election, and even before it, concerns rose over the vote buying. It is one worry that emanated from the capacity of elections to equalize all men. The Dangotes and the richest men on the globe all command a vote each. Forget about those who count the votes and the shenanigans of the collation centres, at the end, the vote remains an equalizer.

Right now, the acclaimed “vote banks”-persons who were hitherto ascribed with the powers to deliver constituencies and states to preferred politicians,  have been deprived of their essence, leading desperate politicians to device vote buying as a strategy.

When the state fails to live up to its essence of defending the weak in the hands of the strong and powerful, that state loses its essence fast. And in the wake of the current Nigerian situation, a pertinent question would arise: How did the insurgents, the bandits, militants and kidnappers found Nigeria their lucrative spot in Africa?

A number of stories have been rendered to explain away the decadence in our security situation presently.  There is the fall of Libya angle, where it was said that the removal and death of Libyan strongman, Maummar Gaddafi led to the disperse of hundreds, if not thousands of insurgents he had trained and harboured for years.  The other story is the decision of the Boko Haram insurgents to pledge loyalty to the Islamic State, making them the face of Islamic State in West Africa.  And there is the excuse influenced by environmental challenge. It was said that the farmers/herders crisis that has claimed thousands of lives in the North Central and parts of North East was as a result of climate change, which influenced the fast approach of the Sahara Desert towards the Nigeria’s hinterlands; making grazing difficult.

Another of the excuses would have it that population growth, the collapse of the economy and growing poverty have combined to wreak the social malaise of insecurity on Nigeria. We have also heard of excuses of our vast borderlines that are porous as well as the massive coastline.

Of all the excuses reeled out in recent times, the fall of Libya story rings loudest. We have been told that the well trained Gaddafi terrorists have joined up with the insurgents in the North East and have also metamorphosed into bandits and sometimes cattle rustlers and kidnappers in different spots across the country.

If that story will subsist, then we have to take a quick look at the experiences of our neighbours in all these.  We have Cameroon to the East, Benin Republic to the West and Niger and Chad on the Northern flank. Cameroon and Benin have coastlines just along the Nigerian borders, they also have porous borders and Cameroon especially has links on the Northern axis that connects to the Chad area, the Sahara Desert and the Central African Republic.

It is curious that despite sharing similar burdens just as our neighbours, Nigeria appears the destination of the acclaimed Libyan rebels and all insurgents across Africa. With the exception of Cameroon and Niger and to some extent, Chad, which suffered some attacks from the insurgents in the past, nothing that our neighbours have suffered can be compared to the challenges we have here.

Just before the general elections, the 19 Northern states got submerged by all manners of marauders including the insurgents, the bandits, kidnappers, cattle rustlers and violent herdsmen.

Why is Nigeria their lucrative spot and what is the attraction really? That is one question the security chiefs have to answer. Rather than proffer all manners of excuses to justify any form of laisse faire attitude towards exterminating insurgency, kidnapping and aberrant security situations, the question to ask is why Nigeria?  If it’s about oil, there are countries in Africa that have oil. If it is about the huge heads of cattle, Nigeria has fewer than several other African countries; if it’s about the allure of Lake Chad, why are the insurgents, bandits and all seizing Kaduna/Abuja road, why are they active in almost all councils in Katsina, why Sokoto, Zamfara, Taraba, Benue and Plateau? This is one question the security chiefs must provide.