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President Bola Tinubu last Thursday gave a marching order to the newly appointed service chiefs: crush insecurity anywhere within the country. President Tinubu while decorating the service chiefs, charged them to act decisively against emerging security threats, warning that “new snakes must be smashed right in the head before they grow.”
Speaking at the Council Chamber of the State House, Abuja, where the four security chiefs were decorated with their new ranks, the President said their appointment “marks the beginning of a renewed effort to ensure peace and security for all Nigerians.
“Today’s ceremony is beyond the symbolism of decoration. It marks the beginning of our renewed effort to ensure the peace and security of all Nigerians.
“Each of you has been carefully selected for this critical task. Security is an essential element without which everything else is rendered meaningless…”
The president could not have been more apt, succinct and concise. The jobs of these security chiefs are well cut out for them. Nigeria is under siege! There cannot be any excuse. They either succeed or they fail.
The greatest threat to the nation since the return to democracy in 1999 has been insecurity. Not a single part of this nation is spared. From the North to the West, to the East and South, all manner of armed groups and non-state actors have held sway.
We have lost so much lives that the deaths or killings of Nigerians by gunmen hardly make the front pages of our national newspapers again.
One thing for sure, is that our military are well capable of arresting this ugly trend, but what is not certain is how far our politicians are prepared to go in support of the military to make the country, livable, peaceful and prosperous again?
It’s becoming obvious that there is no political will to confront this monster. How long shall this nation be held hostage by ragtag groups whose sources of finance and sponsorship have remained intractable and a mystery?
It’s obvious that the political class are simply over indulging these criminals. Kaduna to Katsina and most parts of the North are daily ravaged by gunmen. Rather than rout them, we were negotiating, rehabilitating and paying compensations, yet these people are not yielding. Recently in Katsina, bandits who had been declared wanted, boldly attended a so-called peace meeting fully armed. This is an effrontery that is unheard of down south except in the north.
The new service chiefs; General Olufemi Olatubosun Oluyede, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS); Lieutenant General Emmanuel Undiendeye, Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI); Lieutenant General Waidi Shaibu, Chief of Army Staff (COAS); Air Marshal Kevin Aneke, Chief of Air Staff (CAS); and Vice Admiral Idi Abbas, Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), were decorated with their new ranks and given the same order; end insecurity.
As if to jolt the new service chiefs to action and to remind them of the enormous task at hand, and how crucial their new assignments are, President Donald Trump on Friday, opened the door for sanctions to be imposed on Nigeria for allegedly failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.
Trump announced that he would designate Nigeria “a country of particular concern” as it relates to religious freedom, a move that had been pushed by some U.S. lawmakers.
Expectedly, the FG has rejected the redesignation, describing the allegations behind the move as inaccurate and unreflective of the nation’s realities.
There are a lot of work to be done. The new service chiefs must be given all the necessary support to succeed.
Contesting the position of America against Nigeria cannot be the best approach because it’s inconsequential whether those being killed are Muslims or Christians, what is of utmost relevance and importance is that Nigerians are being killed on a daily basis.
What should bother us more is the audacity of these criminals and the half-hearted and uncoordinated approach of the political class both at the local, state or federal levels.
That said, we cannot also dismiss the fact that Christians have been the major targets especially in the North Central. When Boko Haram started, their only targets were churches and Christians. This went on while the elite in the North feigned ignorance and remained indifferent. It was not until a mosque was attacked in Kano, that the then CBN governor, now Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, rushed to deliver aid to the victims, something they never did while churches were attacked even in Abuja.
In Southern Kaduna, under Nasir El-Rufai as governor, Christian communities were daily targets, yet he failed to lift a finger.
What is incumbent on the federal government and the new service chiefs is to go all out to rout these sadists. For several years now we have continued to demand that the names of the sponsors of these criminals be made public. Yet, all we get are failed promises.
Under the late President Muhammadu Buhari, bandits, insurgents and killer herders reigned unchecked. They ravaged the land unrestricted. To add salt to injury, the FG and state governments organised spurious rehabilitation exercises and paid these mass murderers compensations.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we cannot emphasise this fact enough. Who are the ones arming killer-herders with AK-47 and for what purpose? Until we go after the sponsors of these armed groups, we will only be scratching the surface.
Under President Goodluck Jonathan, there were genuine attempts to curtail these people, but the same northern elite accused the Jonathan regime of a deliberate plot to eliminate their youth in the name of fighting Boko Haram insurgents. Today, we are still suffering the consequences.
So, when we say the task before the new service chiefs is simple and straightforward, it is not that we are unmindful of the huge tasks ahead of them, what we imply is that they are either fighting to rout these people and make our land secure for our farmers and IDPs to return to their ancestral lands, or they have decided to also play along with politicians paying lip service while the killings continue.
For president Tinubu as commander in chief of the armed forces, we need not remind him that the primary concern of any government is the safety and security of its people and their property. Anything short of this is failure.
For the president, if the present state of insecurity continues he must consider himself as a failure, the same way the late Buhari is considered a failure in the country today.
If we can secure external aid, so be it. Trump must go beyond just imposing sanctions that will affect the weak the most, but be prepared to offer us support to deal with this problem. In a globalised world, a security threat anywhere is a potential threat everywhere.