Peace on bandits’ terms

THE news that Governor  Aminu Masari of Katsina State has had to leave his comfort zone to seek peace with bandits in their hideouts cannot but elicit a feeling of amazement and amusement.  It is amazing because it is not just an indication but a manifestation of helplessness in a country being governed by law.  It is amusing because it is a case of the tail wagging the dog.  It is a dodgy situation in which the only option available to the chief security officer is a policy of appeasement in dealing with outlaws.  Katsina is of course not alone in the desperate search for peace as one of its neighbours – Zamfara – has been doing likewise. If the parley with bandits has brought an end to brutal killings – as being reported – the conclusion can be unequivocally reached that the end has justified the means, however bizarre.  The release of abductees and the promise to put an end to large scale slaughter of innocent people by the bandits are indeed positive aspects of the peace  deal.  The bandits are, however, not being motivated by sheer altruism as they have been exacting concessions from the affected state governments.   Bandits in the custody of security agents are also being left off the hook.

Security problem in Nigeria is multidimensional and each facet –  be it banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery or insurgency  – has its modus operandi to which the government is yet to find an answer.  Since the bargain for peace in the bandits’ enclaves is believed to have been yielding the desired results, one can only hope that the next round of visits will not be to armed robbers on bended knees in a country with a multitude of security agencies.  In the affected states,  it has been negotiation from a position of weakness  and  –  what looks like –capitulation before law breakers by those who should bring them to justice.

It may indeed not be fair to heap the blame in  its entirety on the affected state governors who,  it is  well known, are operating in a nominal and dysfunctional federation in which the constituent units are virtual appendages to an omnipotent  central government. The immediate past governor of Zamfara State, Abdul’Aziz Yari, openly lamented the meaninglessness of his appellation of chief security officer when the menace of banditry reared its ugly head while he held sway as the state’s chief executive.  Yari was distressed about a situation in which he did not have the authority to stop the killing spree going on in a state under his watch.  He was frustrated that he could not sanction security officers who failed to carry out his instructions.  He groaned that in spite of the huge resources being committed to security by his government  30 lives were lost within one week.

It is a well-known fact  that state governments have been making substantial contributions to the operations of security agencies – particularly the Nigeria  Police Force.  This explains why Yari was utterly despondent when he discovered how powerless he was on the critical issue of secutity. Like Yari, the incumbent governors of Katsina and Zamfara states have been grappling with the effects of a lopsided federation in which almost all powers are concentrated at the centre by Nigeria’s  military-imposed constitution to the detriment of the constituent units. It took years of experimentation and hard bargaining before the British colonial overlords and the first generation of Nigeria’s political leaders fashioned out the federal constitution operated in the first republic.  That constitution recognised the multiplicity of ethnic, cultural and religious groups cobbled together to constitute Nigeria.  It vested in the regions the control of their resources and created the room for the regions to develop at their own pace.  Each region had its own constitution and rivalry among them was healthy. The intervention of the military brought about a reversal of established principles and practices of federalism and the dismantling of a well-thought-out arrangement.  One tragic aspect of today’s Nigeria is that the class of politicians who have been thrown up by circumstances to manage the country’s affairs in 20 years of uninterrupted civilian rule has not been imaginative enough to reverse the anomaly foisted on the country by a predatory military.

In Nigeria’s peculiar federation, the entire security apparatus known to the constitution is in the hands of the Federal Government.   The state commissioner of police has to get the clearance of the Inspector-General before carrying out the instruction of the state governor on whose financial support  the state police command greatly depends in the discharge of its responsibilities.  Governors confronted by security challenges have been running to Abuja for succour because that is the only option available to them.    That the existing Nigerian federation is defective in every ramification is quite glaring.  It has not allowed for optimal utilisation of resources and it has not created room for effective maintenance of internal security.  This clearly explains why state governors are compelled to leave their comfort zones for bandits’ enclaves to make concessions and give undertakings in their effort to appease criminals who should be swiftly brought to justice.

• Olatoye, a veteran journalist, lives in Ibadan.