Rising insecurity: What Buhari should do

In his Eid-el-Maulud message to the nation last Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari called on the media to replace the term ‘rising insecurity’ with ‘declining insecurity’.

The statement signed by Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President, reads further: “The President uses the occasion to give a snapshot of the increased activities the Armed Forces, Police Force, and intelligence agencies have embarked upon to effectively respond to the security challenges in the nation.

“He says the government fully expects and intends for these trends to continue, and calls on the media to address the tone, content, and standards of reporting into security and safety measures. Time has come to revise the prefixes ‘rising insecurity’ with ‘declining insecurity’”.

While I sympathise with the President on the current situation in the country, I refuse to be swayed by emotions to the extent of believing that switching one term with another would scale down insecurity in the country. The unarguable fact is that it would be obvious when insecurity declines in the country. Then, even if the media reports it as escalating, the people would know the difference. In the same vein, if the media reports rising insecurity as declining insecurity, the people will know it is not the truth.

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 last year, 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 the country in peace.

So, rather than thinking that rising insecurity is linkable to the deployment of certain words by the media, President Buhari should be absolutely resolute to stamp out banditry and insurgency as well as their other cousins. He should not give them any breathing space and should allow them no room to thrive. There should not be any clemency for any criminal and no mercy for any of the nation’s traducers. It is when this position is clearly communicated to bandits and terrorists that they will vote with their feet and relocate to a more accommodating environment. No one can rise above the excuses he permits. For as long as the President believes that media reports are responsible for rising insecurity, he will not do what he ought to do to end the menace.