Insecurity: More Than Change Of Guards

With the seemingly intractable security  challenges in the country, and the reprisal attacks the violence is generating, it is doubtless Nigeria’s unity is headed towards terra firma. The rumoured prediction that Nigeria may cease to exist by the year 2015 stares us in the face. While it is easy to dismiss the prediction as too unprincely and perditious,  it will be suicidal to ignore the signs of an impending holocaust.

Right now, Nigeria is in a shark-infested sea with its soul  sinking like a stone. We are in a situation akin to the 1966 – 1967 pogrom when the Biafrans were  in eyeball to eyeball  with the Nigerian government. But while the crisis that led to the Biafran insurgency was well defined, the current violence and blood-letting in the country do not lend themselves to easy categorization. Some say it is a religious war, others believe it is driven by ethnic politics.

President Goodluck Jonathan has lent his voice to the latter. He told the nation on Sunday in a televised chat with selected journalists that the nation’s dare –devil  – Boko Haram only seeks to incite religious crisis in order to destabilise his government.

Even though the incessant attacks on churches and Christians in the North have given the violence a religious colouration, the president appreciates that the blood-letting is far removed from religion for fanatics and bigots to jump in and cause a massive dislocation of the social fabrics. But in a situation where government itself is helpless in tackling the problem it has indentified, the psychological stress on the social fabrics is better imagined.

The governors’ forum, like many other stakeholders, have provided what appears a well thought-out solution to the state of insecurity in the country. The forum, on Monday, called for a multi-dimensional approach to the security situation, “including enhanced co-ordination and collaboration among security forces, effective use of technology and intelligence, value re-orientation, employment generation and sincerity of purpose”.

The forum also identified the increasing need for state police as a strategy for combating the rising insecurity in the country.

While it is necessary for the Jonathan administration to key into these multi-dimensional approach highlighted by the governors, it is also important for the government to come to terms with  the bitter truth that the Boko Haram, on whose shoulder we rest all the violence and bloodletting in the country since October 1, 2010, became a bone in the neck, or a mucus in the mouth as a result of government’s lack of political will to tackle the insurgence  head-on. It takes more than the shedding of tears, or mere assurances by government or even change of security chiefs, as President Jonathan has recently done when he sacked of his defence team, to remove the bone or wipe out the mucus.

As Ray Ekpu put it sometimes ago, when a nation is in some sort of a road that ends in a jungle or in a river, it would require its leaders to cut a path through the jungle or find a boat with which to cross the river, otherwise, it will get stuck like a pin in a groove.

The current spate of violence in Nigeria is no doubt, a prelude to  anarchy. It therefore takes proactive and more decisive measures to fight it and restore order. An insecured nation is a failed nation. Security, anywhere in the world, is the guarantor to political and socio-economic stability. No nation achieves political and economic growth  in a state of insecurity or when the lives of the citizenry are being threatened.

Now that everything seems to point to the 2015 permutations, it is  incumbent upon the Jonathan administration to rise above the brigandage   of  politics and save the nation from drifting towards another pogrom.

One way to do this is for President Jonathan’s administration to muscle enough courage to deal decisively with whoever is linked with the spate of killings in the country, no matter how highly placed the persons might be.

Boye Salau