Nigeria has to its credit, hundreds of top-down/ Government sponsored summits and discourses on Challenges of National Security, with hundreds of high sounding in many communiqués which seem to be inversely related to the level of national security. As a labour delegate member to National Conference inaugurated in 2014 by President Goodluck Jonathan, I bear witness that there were 12 robust conference resolutions on National Security. They include appointment of the Chief of Defense Staff and Service Chiefs based on merit and seniority, setting up a minimum baseline for assessing the state of national security in the country, equipping the Armed Forces and Police adequately, review the welfare packages including pension and gratuity of security personnel. Apparently these were Resolutions written, Resolutions not meant to be implemented as they are gathering dusts like other past governments’ reports.
Last Monday in Kaduna, there was a refreshing bottom-Up dialogue on Security Situation in the North. Of course, 1999 constitution envisages security and welfare as public goods by governments at all levels. But like all other public goods such as health and education, citizens’ self helps are the rule than exemptions when talking about security and welfare. Many thanks to the “security/self-help” of Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP)/Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation (SABMF), Savanah Centre Diplomacy, Democracy and Development (SCDDD)/the Joint Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations for convening a two-day Security Conference. It is a welcome development that citizens of the region are taking the ownership of the problem, for which their elected leaders are increasingly unfit to solve. However the critical question is: are the citizens set to change the Security narrative from this same big-man/top down non-inclusive approach to national security? First whose security are we talking about? 1999 constitution certainly envisages security and welfare for all. But the truth is that notwithstanding the national hysteria about rampant kidnappings, robberies, rural banditry and terror attacks, the mass insecurity victims are the poor undefended citizens, not the political and business men who ensure own class protection. For those who still care, the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) has long raised an alarm about the incessant killings and abduction of school officials by armed bandits in Zamfara state and other parts of the North. Mike Ike-Ene, the Secretary-General of the NUT disclosed that over 600 teachers have lost their lives in the North East through insurgency and social unrest in the area, adding that it has discouraged teachers from working or being transferred to the affected states. For a region in which millions of children are out of schools, serial murder of teachers further pushes the region in the abyss of illiteracy. Of course, there have been kidnappings and abductions of some few high profile Nigerians whose names hit the headlines on account of their status and class. But insecurity of worse dimensions have been the daily woes of the majority of Nigerians. Sadly mass victims of insecurity have been reduced to mere numbers to justify the need for official security summits and security votes which in turn guarantee security only for the few and insecurity for many. It’s ten years of Boko Haram vicious insurgency in North Eastern Nigeria. As many as 30,000 people have been killed with at least 2.4 million displaced. Have we paused to know the identities of the dead and the displaced as much as we are alarmed with the class profile of a district head or son of Minster kidnapped and released? In most cases, mass victims are poor working people in the farms, traders in towns and as have heard from NUT, teachers and civil servants as Civil Service Union would readily testify. The point cannot be overstated that we must make security inclusive for all. And that must start with the recognition of the class character of the mass victims and the seeming indifference we treat the plight of defenseless poor compared to the alarm the insecurity of the rich and politically protected generate in the media. Take the notorious and infamous Herdsmen-Farmer Clashes. “Since 1999, herdsmen-farmer clashes have led to over 10,000 deaths. In 2018, the herdsmen-farmer crisis resulted in at least 1,600 people being killed and another 300,000 displaced. This represents a higher death toll than Boko Haram in 2018”. The victims are again small cattle and land owners who we have reduced to mere death statistics. We also compound the insecurity of the poor as we uncharitably profile them as either “Christian” or “Muslims” making the conflict intractable. Of course when the rich fight over territory and resources (as they often do!), nobody knows their faiths, casualties are nil and resolutions often follow due process. For a nation that is food dependent, that suffers rapid de-industrialization, further wastage of scarce mass human capital through banditry, terrorism and mass deaths pushes Nigeria into deeper under development. Rather than talking of Herdsmen-Farmer Clashes, the narrative should be on how to ensure agrarian revolution in which working people on land (either Herdsmen-Farmers) would through cooperation and complementary labour productivity would generate wealth and halt Nigerian food dependency. As we celebrate the suspension of RUGA projects more out of fear rather than reasons of development, we should not forget that Nigeria spends $22 billion annually on importation of various food items like wheat, beef, rice, fish, and poultry products among others. “Of this figure, milk and tomato paste importation officially gulps over one billion dollars (N300 billion) and $400m (N1.2 billion) respectively annually. We must secure the majority or else Nigeria risks perpetual underdevelopment.
Last year the then Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG), Zone 5 in Benin, Rasheed Akintunde disclosed that only 20 per cent of policemen are engaged in core police duties of protecting lives and ensuring peace in the country. “The remaining 80 percent are just busy providing personal security to some `prominent people’ on guard duties. He reportedly decried the situation where some prominent people in the society seek more than 30 policemen to protect them, while the bulk of work for the members of the force rests on protecting the masses. “Every big man wants personal security, they want a number of policemen to come and secure them and their family members, instead of supporting the police to work and ensure a safer environment. “Honorable members want police security, even Reverend Fathers, Bishops now want police security, so the remaining 20 percent police the whole country. “If we can redistribute policemen from some government formations and deploy them to work on their core duty, it will yield a positive result,’’ he advised.
Issa Aremu mni
