End the siege of the nation, Mr President

Our country is under siege. It has been for some years now. It is worsening because a problem not solved, and a challenge not taken up, all tend to grow bigger and more intractable. Our current cocktail of security challenges did not just happen. They steadily crept up on the country over the years.

On January 15, 1966, five majors in the Nigerian army introduced the gun as a viable alternative to seeking political power through the ballot box. The bullet replaced the ballot paper. Coups became the sure route to political power and personal or group fortunes. By the end of the civil war in January 1970, the gun had birthed armed robbers and other criminal elements in the country. The gun now reigns in our dear country. The reign of the gun is the reign of violence and insecurity. No nation can afford it.

We live under the shadow of the gun as a nation. Minor disagreements between individuals and communities are settled with AK47. The easy resort to violence is evidence that we have lost it. Violent crimes have become national challenges. Think of the sheer number of criminal elements that hold our nation under siege: armed robbers, kidnappers, bandits, Fulani herdsmen, hired killers, etc.  Because of the ubiquitous AK 47, we quake in our homes, on the roads and in our offices. Our hearts dance in our mouths. Our children, the future leaders of this country, are routinely abducted from their schools and subjected to inhuman treatment in the bush for months and sometimes years. The young girls are turned into sex slaves for the pleasure of the terrorists. It is a national shame. From Chibok to the current situation, the Nigerian state appears absent from the lives of its citizens.

Kaduna State has become the safe theatre for the kidnappers. The fate of the 287 students abducted from a school in the state on March 7 remains uncertain. On March 18, another batch of 86 people were abducted in the state.  Daily Trust gave graphic details of kidnapping and killings in Kaduna State in its issue of March 19. According to the newspaper, there were eight incidents of kidnapping and killings in three local government areas in 30 days. Some 452 victims were affected. The assault on schools and children is an assault on the future of this country. This is common sense.

Our security forces are having the worst time of it. It is not just a pity; it is a great pity.

A few days ago, armed youths in Delta State killed 17 officers and men of the Nigerian Army on routine security duty in the area. They were the latest victims of the mindless killing of our security forces. Boko Haram has held the record of killing our soldiers serving the North-East geo-political zone. The killing of police officers and men has become routine in various parts of the country.

This is unacceptable. The attack on security forces is an attack on the nation-state.  No nation allows it. We should not. If criminals operate with apparent impunity, the nation and its security forces become helpless. We become sitting ducks for the criminal elements in the land. Bandits reign in the North-West. They killed more 3,000 people in Zamfara State between June 2017 and June 2018. That figure is now outdated. Many more have been killed. They reign in Zamfara and enjoy almost total control of Katsina State.

The continued loss of fellow citizens to criminals is etched on the forlorn and pathetic faces of the hundreds, if not thousands, of our country men and women reduced to refugees, technically called internally displaced persons, in the IDP camps. On March 5, terrorists abducted more than 200 women from an IDP camp on Borno State. None of them has been set free. Their hope of returning to their devastated homes to pick up the pieces is not looking bright by the day. We cannot afford to live much longer with what is happening. The Nigerian state must show its muscle. It is the moral and constitutional duty of the nation state to keep its citizens safe. That duty is imperative and cannot be shirked without horrendous consequences for us all.

Time to end the head scratching and hand wringing. We have reached a desperate situation. Condemning these killings or taking some reactive steps cannot lead us out of the woods in which we now find ourselves. Our leaders at all levels must wake up to these challenges. The responsibility for making them wake up lies with the president.  It does not take rocket science to see that we face an existential threat in our fatherland. Tinubu must rise up urgently to the challenge of containing the reign of terror in the land. It must end. No meaningful development can take place in this climate of insecurity. And that is why security of the nation and its citizens is the first constitutional duty imposed on the government.

The situation is bad, but it is not hopeless. Unless and until the government determinedly confront these bands of criminals holding the nation to ransom, they will continue to have a field day. They give our gallant security forces a bad name. Surely, the Nigerian government is not weak or impotent. It must quit acting weak and indecisive. The feeling of impotence on the part of the state encourages the criminals to operate with impunity. They choose where to attack and when. They kill, burn homes, and abduct and then vanish into thin air. They are not ghosts. They are fellow Nigerians profiting from the failure of the state to protect its citizens fully and adequately from harm.

The life of every citizen matters because every human life is sacred. If the president needs to tweak the architecture of our national security to get results, he should do so now. The state must regain the upper hand and free the nation from the siege of sundry criminals. The reign of the gun is the reign of insecurity and uncertainty. Time to end it.