An African proverb says, “A wrong step by a leader is a warning to his followers.”
‘We’ used above means different things to different people. At one instance, it refers to those who assume that the president belongs to them. On the contrary, it also refers to those who assume the president is not their own; therefore, does not belong to any of them. On the proper assumption however, it means the generality of Nigerian citizens who share the same feeling is the one that the president has failed them.
From wherever one resorts to think of it, the definition of where the president belongs to and where he does not is clearly explained in his saying: “I belong to nobody, and I belong to everybody”! The interpretation of this would, of course, be very heavy. Heavier that those being killed and kidnapped must have really tested the fact that the chief security officer of the nation does not belong to them! Even more intriguing is the fact that the president who ‘belongs to everybody’ is now glaring!
It’s erroneous therefore to always assume that a president belongs to this, or that. What’s currently happening in the north is even more tragic. It’s enough for the wise to see Nigeria beyond the perceived colonial project of north/south dichotomy.
This piece is an attempt to reflect on the recent discussions on insecurity as covered by Arise News, a live coverage interview in which the director of publicity and advocacy to Arewa Elders Forum, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, featured as a guest speaker. The video with the title, ‘Northern Elders Forum (NEF) Blames Buhari for Insecurity in the North’ was shared by the NEF director on his verified Facebook Account on 6th December, 2020. See the link below: https://www.facebook.com/100006698646237/posts/2916293295270597/?app=fbl.
A lot of issues were interrogated in the course of this live discourse. Most of the issues raised centered around the fundamental and most topical question of insecurity. Important among them are the trending issues of calling on the president to resign, the question of firing the Service Chiefs, the fundamental issue of Almajiri institution and the long desiring quest for restructuring the nation as well as the question of where the president should come from in the upcoming 2023 General Election.
To begin with the last question which though appears too early, it is treated in the live discourse, that despite the growing uncanniness and challenges of the current PMB administration which are almost entirety uncalled for, this does not however, necessarily guarantees that a new president must be someone from outside the region in 2023. At best, a president should come from any region that presents the best candidate. The challenge of this administration, beyond the north and south, is a challenge for the nation. Such should not create an open for parochial politics to thrive.
The ongoing National Assembly constitutional amendmend proceedings on restructuring the nation is full of such suspicion. It passes a message that what’s happening now is a lesson for the north. Of course, the north suffered the most but certainly the lesson is for the whole nation. It’s deadly to always see politics from the perceived regional and (or) religious antics. This perception has created the notion that the current administration is even more worse than the previous ones because the president is from the north. Far from this assertion. The fact that PMB’s government has failed to withstand the challenge of insecurity does not mean that the tragedy of the previous GEJ administration is buried and born again.
This perceived primordial politics also reflected too often on the outlook of the security chiefs. Responses from the live interview clearly passed a caution to the general citizens to disown parochial politics on matters of national security. “Where the Service Chiefs come from, as Baba-Ahmed puts it, ‘is not the issue.” What is more important is that they’re officers in charge of the security of the nation, and they have failed. Their calling to resign has nothing to do with ‘dirty politics’ as Lai Mohammed pejoratively asserted. At best, this call presented the interest of the mass citizenry whose security of lives and property ‘belongs to nobody’! There’s nothing more dirty as politics than to keep saying, despite the senseless killings and relentless kidnapping of innocent citizens, ‘the security chiefs are doing their best’, or that ‘Boko Haram is technically defeated’, etc. Nothing is as blatant and dirtier as this.
Likewise, asking the president to resign would not do anybody any harm, nor should it go against the constitution if facts are satisfactorily presented. It’s interesting to see that the same president asked the same question and also called for the same action against the erstwhile President Jonathan in 2013. What is not good about it now if it was not ‘dirty’ then? It’s worrying that a former Army General who fought in the war could not sense the value of information and intelligence, could not even sense the value of decisive tactics to investigate and expunge the alleged pitfalls of his security chiefs.
It’s not any wrong therefore to say that both the president and his security chiefs are doing a great disservice to this nation.
It’s crystal clear that intelligence gathering is very poor and that the serving war soldiers are ill-equiped and ill-motivated. In its editorial of August 26, 2020, The Business Day newspaper reported that over 200 experienced soldiers reportedly resigned. The Nigerian Army would later debunk it, but the media reports have put paid to the position of the military authorities. It is also recently reported widely in the national dailies that there were trending videos of some Nigerian soldiers cursing and criticising the Chief of Army Staff for not supplying them the needed weapons and ammunition to combat Boko Haram reappraisal killings. Most of these videos were made in the Sambisa forest and the soldiers who made the videos would later bite their fingers. The high-ranking military officer, Major Gen Olusegun Adeniyi and Lance Corporal Martin’s provided a good example.
It was on this basis and in the wake of these increasing atrocities that Nigerians are calling on the president to sack his Service Chiefs and let go free of the war against insurgencies from any official truncation. And now that the call is extended to demand for his resignation, one must not fail to notice that Nigerians have not been satisfied with the president’s innuendos that the ‘best’, his Service Chiefs are doing is not enough for the country. Just as simple as that! Indeed, worse than the sacking of the Service Chiefs, the president himself is also being called upon to resign!
Finally, and the last issue raised in the live coverage is the question of Almajiri institution. A good part of the response to this question debunked the view that the current insecurity situation in the north is a ‘pay back’ time because the region allows the self-inflicted ‘social disconnect’ to deepen in the fractures against the societal peace construct. The response shows that, of course, there are currently about 40 million Almajiris roaming on the streets, but its institution is something that existed for quite a long time. It is an issue that should best be handled properly and had this been so, it could not have worsened the security situation of the region. But it should be misleading, if not mistaken, to assume the cause of ongoing insurgencies in the north from the perceived threat of the Almajiri. The Almajiri factor preceded Boko Haram and the later could be defeated in the first six months of its existence had the leadership is committed to what it promised to fix for the nation.
On the whole, what the north needs the most now is not only the question of addressing the Almajiri problem, but also of the general problem of poverty, unemployment and socio-economic well-being of the citizens as a whole. There’s need for collaborative effort between states and federal government towards addressing the growing threat of insecurity in the region. It is good if the northern governors should collaborate and adopt a down-to-earth approach that would engage the state judiciary, emirs and religious leaders as well as other stakeholders on the security situation of the region. Many recommendations have already been proposed in that regard. Issues that concerns the delay in the criminal proceedings for example should be discouraged. Criminals should be made to bear the right consequences within a given time limit. There’s also the need to go beyond the suspicious community policing — call it vigilante or “Yan Sa Kai’ to more of the standardisation of the police — to upgrade and augment the security manpower of the region.
This goes to justify the saying that, “A clear, thinking leader is a sign of stability and an agent for societal change.”
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