Although President Muhammadu Buhari never fails to make it abundantly clear to Nigerians that he is overwhelmed by the burden of office and is earnestly looking forward to his retirement, he keeps on blaming others for failing to do what Nigerians elected him to do.
In a statement issued last Tuesday, the President attempted to duck responsibility for the nation’s rising security challenge with a view to heaping the blame on security agencies as he said that the military had the duty to bring an end to insecurity in the country. In the statement signed by Mallam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Buhari said “We have given security forces full freedom to deal with, and bring to end, this madness.”
The statement shows that President Buhari seems to have forgotten that he is the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces. As the Commander-In-Chief, he is the number one security personnel employed by the country and he cannot abdicate that responsibility. So, instead of claiming that he has given the security forces full freedom to end banditry and terrorism, he should focus on how he can lead the task of scaling down insecurity in the country over the next nine months that he has left in office so that he can hand over a wholesome country to his successor.
Since the end of the civil war in 1970, no situation has assaulted the psyche of Nigerians as much as the current spate of insecurity that has left thousands dead, hundreds of thousands maimed and millions homeless. Insecurity has brought the economy of the nation’s North East region comatose and has reduced the worth of life in most parts of the nation’s North. Insecurity has scaled up poverty in the country and is partly responsible for the nation’s infamous title as the country with the highest number of out of school children.
The ugly development which started in 2009 has snowballed into a full scale war against the nation with bandits and insurgents appearing to be more adept at the battle front than the nation’s military in spite of the oodles of money allocated to them year after year. It has gotten so bad that governors use state funds to pay ransom for the release of victims of bandits while they also champion the calls for negotiation with bandits. So seemingly terrible is the situation that the country’s immediate past Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, submitted that Nigeria could not hope to overcome the situation in the next two decades.
One thing that criminals never fail to do is testing the resolve of their victims. All criminals practise this. They try to see how far they can get with their victims just as they assess the determination of their victims to end their subjection to the aggressors’ reign. Once they find out that the resolve of the victims is elastic, they extend their suppression. But once they are convinced of the determination of the victims to end the oppression, they scram to look for another victim.
In March 2020, Boko Haram insurgents tried the resolve of Chad Republic in an attack that left about 92 Chadian soldiers dead. This got then Chadian President, Idriss Deby Itno, really angry and he resolved to lead the nation’s military in an offensive to stamp out Boko Haram from his country. The operation codenamed “Operation Wrath of Bomo,” resulted in the killing of over a thousand insurgents. Since that decisive action, insurgency has nosedived in Chad. Unlike Chad’s decisive action, Nigeria has been pampering criminals. This is why criminality has been gaining ground in the country. When the leaders are ready to halt the onslaught, we would take decisive actions meant to stamp out banditry and insurgency and criminality would recede in the country. As observed by Niccolo Machiavelli, “Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.”
I am of the conviction that those in charge of putting a check to banditry and insurgency are not seriously thinking of ending this insult on our nationhood because of their personal interest.
Every crisis is a money-making opportunity. Going by the prolonged nature of the country’s battle with criminality, there is no doubt that some people are profiting from the horrible situation. For as long as there is money to be made by some Nigerians from this ugly situation, they will work hard to ensure that the crisis does not end. Those who serve as intermediaries between state governments and kidnappers will hope for more kidnapping so that they can continue to have their cuts. For as long as we make criminality profitable to some people, we will not see a decline in banditry and insurgency.
Then, we have different leaders pulling in different directions. The country has no national strategy to end banditry and insurgency. While some state governors have vowed not to reward banditry with negotiation and compensation, others are all out for the state to negotiate with bandits and reward them. While some leaders are of the opinion that those who do crime should do the time, some are angling that those who claim to have repented should be empowered by the state. This is nothing but confusion. Where there is confusion, criminality thrives. To end criminality, there must be a well-thought-out strategy to attack the menace.
Banditry and insurgency became full blown over a period of time and neither of them will end overnight. However, ending them will not happen on a platter of silver. The country has to demonstrate a resolve to end insurgency than the resolve of the criminals to perpetuate criminality. This is what will put criminality to flight and keep the country in peace.
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