By Adedotun Ajayi
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In Nigeria today, insecurity has taken the center stage of daily activities. It has continued to remain a disconcerting challenge, with attacks by unknown gunmen, armed bandits and kidnappers.
Almost on a daily basis, the media is flooded with news of killings of vulnerable Nigerians, without any moral justification, with the value for life deteriorating to a sorrowful level.
Meanwhile, the importance of peace in the development of a nation needs not be over-emphasized. One can say without any fear of contradiction that any nation or state where peace does not exist relatively can hardly witness any progress, to say the least.
The rate of insecurity generally, has led to massive loss of the nation’s human resources. This ugly trend poses a threat to the future of the nation’s agricultural productivity level, private sector investment volume, petroleum sector growth rate, manpower, development and overall economic development.
The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has said that no fewer than 100,000 people have been killed in Nigeria in the last 10 years due to insecurity.
The problem of insecurity has been with us for a while but it has been exacerbated by the unwillingness of the federal government to tackle the problem when it began with herders killing farmers in the Middle Belt States of the country before it spread all over the country.
For ethnic, religious and reasons of common consanguinity, Fulani herders were not deterred by were allowed to get away with various cases of murder. Land owners were asked to love their attackers or to choose between keeping their lands or losing their lives. The victims are now naturally fighting back thus creating chaos all over the country.
Criminals who now make millions through kidnapping have joined in the general commotion and have even abandoned their previous crimes as highway robbers and kidnappers, seizing both young and old individuals irrespective of social or economic status and demanding they be ransomed for money or else be brutally killed.
Long before now, the Southwest zone of the country has somehow been spared from the chaos prevalent in the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, but now it’s witnessing a substantial level of violence, killings, kidnappings and banditry.
How did we get to this point? This is a very germane question that some people who spoke on the issue try to answer.
Mr Bukun Adewa, an educationist said, the question should be “how did we get careless with poverty and not insecurity, a country where more than half of the population is poor, you expect anyone to have a peaceful sleep at night? No, that’s not possible.
Currently, Nigeria is home to the highest number people in extreme poverty all over the world. This is a terrible record. Human security is far more weightier than hard security. A hungry man is an angry man.
“Someone who lacks basic needs may become too desperate to fend for them, not minding the consequences. Currently, the poorest states in Nigeria breed the worst sets of criminals. For examples the bases of the banditry and terrorism in the country are the states like Borno and Zamfara.
“Another factor that won’t make insecurity end in this country is the rate of unemployment, there’s an adage that says “ an Idle hand is a devil’s workshop” Worrisome rate of unemployment in Nigeria (over 33%) is a chief causmanye of insecurity, particularly, considering the fact that a significant portion of the unemployed are young graduates. Many of them end up employing negatively the knowledge they have acquired in schools. This accounts for surge in the incidence of cybercrimes and other organized economic/financial crimes.
Nigerian politics encourages violence and brigandage. Many political gladiators in the country engage the services of louts and outlaws to intimidate their opponents and, even, the “uncooperating” masses in order to have their ways. The gladiators arm and legitimize these hoodlums. Thus, outlaws grow in number and strength” he added
According to Babatunde Garuba, a legal luminary “That is not a question for you or I to answer. That is subject to an exhaustive list of several things.
The issues leading to the general insecurity in Nigeria with special reference to the northern part of the country is a result of many years of elitist manipulations and failures.
I will not go into details because the stark truth will appear as if a section of the country is been singled out for abuse. But nonetheless, Those who have had the best opportunity to rule Nigeria have been the ones who have dragged her back the most. And their irresponsible behaviour of the past has finally caught up with them.
“The result is what you see that is going on today. Take for instance, since the advent of democracy in 1999, any discerning mind will understand that it’s been going from bad to worse.
“To get it back to a safe society, many painful but hard decisions will need to be taken. This may affect some of the elites themselves, but it’s the only way to make things work. Otherwise, Nigeria will continue to drift and get worse” he reacted
Khalid Okunade, a legal practitioner said Nigeria was structured in a way that it couldn’t avert insecurity.” The country was created as a British colony. You have several very large ethnic groups of multiple millions of people, with a defined territory, that would be larger than many European countries. Since Nigeria was a colony of Britain, it remained unified after independence.
“No dominant religion or ethnic group. This does not work anywhere. You can have small minorities, but with no majority, you have chaos. The only way a multi ethnic state works is if one group is in control- but still gives some decent treatment to others.
“An extractive economy. Having an economy based on extracting raw resources and selling them to someone else always results in corruption. Instead of competing to develop a modern economy, leaders compete to get control of the oil and to sell it to whatever foreign country gives them personally the best deal.
“In my experience, Nigerians I have met tend to be very hard working people. But until the country rights itself, the best of the country will continue to leave” he noted.
