Before all are consumed

I am not an expert in the area of security or intelligence andtherefore incapable of x-raying the statement in relation to the situation at hand but one thing that is becoming clear is that if care is not taken, the chicken is about coming home to roost.When the Deputy Governor of Borno State told me […]

I am not an expert in the area of security or intelligence andtherefore incapable of x-raying the statement in relation to the situation at hand but one thing that is becoming clear is that if care is not taken, the chicken is about coming home to roost.
When the Deputy Governor of Borno State told me early in 2013 that at the time the insurgency began in MAIDUGURI MUNICIPALITY, EVERYONE IN THE N EIGBOURHOOD THOUGHT IT WAS a local matter that did not concern them as such looked the other way. Before long, the problem had infested the whole of the state and even began in the neighborhood of Yobe and then Gombe and subsequently other parts of Northern Nigeria.
Most of us in the North are today going to sleep with our two eyes open due to fear of the environment. From Boko Haram in the North-east and North-west, what we are witnessing today is a new phraseology of herdsmen in the North-central area wreaking havoc on lives and property.
The essence of this analogy is to bring to the notice of those who are in authority and are of the belief that this crisis is restricted in limit and space to begin to think otherwise because even if truly there are no invisible hands in the crises as some conspiracy theories seem to be suggesting, the lackadaisical manner in which the government initially perceived and handled the social insurrection in the North-east and subsequently North-west has contributed immensely in the near collapse of national security.
One will not be completely wrong to posit that life in Nigeria today is typical of the Hobbesian state of nature. It is short, it is nasty and it is brutish. The consequence of the action or inaction of the state means that the problem could go national and if the State Security Department’s story is to be accepted, the meaning of the Sunday ‘jailbreak’ attempt and the subsequent fire fighting that occasioned the operation speaks very loudly about the state of the nation.
I want to think that there is still quite a substantial misconception or deliberate desire to properly understand the nature of insurrection by those who decide on our behalf. There are still men in government who believe that the insurgency is political or supported by politicians from the North. There cannot be any untruth far from this and I am of the view that such beliefs in the first place were responsible for the aggravation of the crisis.
If government had acted with the necessary patriotism and wisdom, the problem would have substantially been nipped long before now. The painful part of it is that there are very many of them upstairs who still harbor such a myopic views and thus are unable to bring to bear the synergies necessary to address these obvious national calamities.
Again, the conspiracy theories suggesting government’s tacit involvement in the state of insecurity in selected parts of the country have variously explained where the security agencies were caught flat-footed. The incidents of attacks on schools and how military road blocks were arbitrarily removed just before the attacks and the massive attacks on unsuspecting communities in especially the North-central states of Benue, Taraba and Nasarawa, as well as the callous massacre of tens of people by unknown gunmen in Katsina State, in the last few weeks give credence to some of these theses.
Those who hear should hear and know that their actions or inactionsare making insurrection a Nigerian problem. If anybody is in the illusion that the state of insecurity in the country is containable only when it reaches certain parts of the country,that person must be mistaken. It seems to be growing with massive force and is seemingly uncontainable unless honest and truthful strategies are adopted.
If anybody was in the illusion that what happened at the headquarters of the SSS was impossible, the Sunday March 30 episode was an eye opener. The meaning of that is that nobody is safe and nobody is protected in the country.
Our call is as always, government must be honest and sincere in this fight against insurgency and must do everything possible to address the issue genuinely. Those security agencies that are eating fat on the insurrection must be made to stop and face the reality, which the country is in today.
It is no doubt that some security officials have made brisk business out of this unfortunate situation. They turned the whole thing into money making venture at the cost of very many human lives. Such officials can never for the rest of their lives go to sleep peacefully.
My fear as always is that our country is grinding to a halt. We are lawless followership and greedy leadership. I share the view that corruption may not be Nigeria’s number one problem but impunity. Things happen as if we are in the literary animal kingdom.
The essence of civilization is government and the essence of government is regulation. We are so unregulated and deregulated and cannot continue that way if we are to survive. It is possible for change to happen but that must first begin with the leadership who can then deploy reward and sanction on members of the society.
As it is now, things are really out of shape and they need to be corrected. That is why we have insurrection, that is why we have indiscipline and corruption and that is why both leaders and the followership are behaving with impunity. A nation cannot grow under such an atmosphere of confusion. Things must change and for the better but first at the level of leadership.