Why  Bello Turji, terror kingpin, has not been arrested by troops –Lekan-Ojo, security expert

By Olakunle Olafioye

The grim figures of victims of insurgency and kidnapping in the country as recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics have remained a major source of worry to most Nigerians. 

One of them, Mr Jackson Lekan-Ojo, a Port-Harcourt-based security expert, noted that the NBS statistics do not bode well for the country as it further underscored the need for the government to up the ante in its war against insecurity in the country.

Lekan-Ojo warned that Nigeria may face a more worrisome challenge in the next few years should the government fail to address insurgency and banditry that currently plaguing to northern part of the country, giving hints of what the government should do to cut short the reign of terror kingpin, Bello Turji in the Northwest

Recent statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics indicated that over 600,000 Nigerians lost their lives to insecurity in the country between May 2023 and April 2024 while more than two million people were kidnapped within the same period. But in spite of these frightening statistics, there are politicians who believe Nigeria has fared better security-wise under the current administration than under Buhari’s government. How would you assess the situation?

That is a political statement. Nigeria won’t get it right until we stop politicizing sensitive issues like security. No matter the level of a nation’s investment in the economy and infrastructure, lack of security can collapse 20 years of investments and the efforts put in the economy and infrastructure. These people should have talked to the power that be, in the form of healthy criticism, advising the government. But the people who are in position to go indoor with the president or the National Security Adviser and tell them the truth, will rather come to the public to praise the government. We will not get it right if we continue to politicize security.

It was said that kidnappers raked in a whopping N2.2 trillion within the same period. Isn’t this an indication that the government needs to do something drastic to discourage the payment of ransom in securing kidnapped victims?

There is no business conglomerate that made such money within the period – not even Dangote or Shell petroleum. That is to let you know that kidnapping for ransom has taken the centre stage in the country. It is unfortunate that the government and the people are losing such a huge amount of money to miscreants and nobody is seeing it as something serious. Are we saying this money cannot be traced? Are we saying when the families of victims talk to security agencies and their captors are directing them to where the money should be dropped, are we saying there is no technology that can be used to track their movements and cordoned off the area and get the people arrested? There are a lot of technologies we can use. But we fail to take advantage of these technologies and these criminal elements have seen our weakness when it comes to deploying technology to fight insecurity and they capitalize on it to undo Nigeria. To me, the intelligence community should be able to track these criminals. When an American citizen was kidnapped in Borno sometime ago. American intelligence came into Nigeria and rescued their citizen and took him away. Why can’t we do the same? We are just not serious in this country.

The government has repeatedly shown it is disposed to pardoning some terrorists for reasons known to them. So far, would you say the decision to pardon arrested terrorists has in some way impacted positively on the fight against insecurity?

I have never heard it anywhere in the world that terrorists are pardoned, but if the government chooses to pardon them, they should be sufficiently re-indoctrinated, de-radicalized and re-sensitized to change their mentality. We don’t do these before they are brought back into society. Recently, there was a resurgence in the activities of these terrorists in Borno State where they attacked a military barracks and killed some soldiers. Few days later, over 40 people were beheaded in their farms. It is the same set of terrorists who found their ways back into the society without being re-sensitized that are doing all this. Granting amnesty to arrested terrorists, in my own view, is just a political way of  getting some people freed because definitely, no matter how evil these people are there are some people that have sympathy for them – either tribal sympathy, religious or ethnic sympathy. We should not compare these people with the Niger Delta militants of the past. Those people had reasons for picking up arms. And immediately their grouse was addressed they dropped their arms. What are the reasons for insurgency and terrorism in the country now? Initially, they claimed western education was evil and should not be encouraged. From there they metamorphosed into helping themselves to raise funds. They sent some of them to become bandits, those ones helped them to raise money. These people are one, they share the same orientation and ideology. They do not deserve to be pardoned. Even if any of them comes out that he is repentant, they should keep them in prisons for at least six years until they change their mentality. During this period they should be able to acquire skills that will make it possible for them to live a decent life by being able to earn a living. They should not just be released until we are satisfied that they have changed their orientation and have been de-radicalized before they are allowed back into society.

The advocacy for state police has continued to gain traction. Do you see this as a major solution to the problem of insecurity in Nigeria?

State police is desirable, but I will like to add two things because of the mentality of the political class particularly the governors. My second reservation about it borders on economic reasons. How many of the states of the federation have begun paying the minimum wage? There are some states that claim they cannot afford the minimum wage till now. But they are in support of state police. How will they fund it? By the time you empower state police, you give them arms and uniforms, but you don’t have a salary to pay them, you have just succeeded in bolstering insecurity. Secondly, when you encourage state police, the state governors will just call local government chairmen and ward chairmen of his party and ask them to supply certain numbers of people to be recruited into the state police force. Who do you think they will bring? They will only go for the same set of thugs they deployed to snatch ballot boxes during the election. At the end of the day they will end up recruiting political thugs and social miscreants as state police force. And when it is time for election, these are the same people that will be used to conduct elections. You can imagine what the party in power will do in this situation.

Do you think the government is doing enough in tackling the security challenge particularly in the North which has remained the hotspot for insurgency and banditry for more than a decade now?

The most important duty of the government is the security of life and property; 80 per cent of the food we consume is from northern Nigeria, but the farmers who cultivate these food crops cannot go to farm due to insecurity. The father and mother of insecurity anywhere in the world is food insecurity. No matter how well you equip your security agencies, their operatives will not be able to fight insecurity if they are hungry. The Federal Government should move fast to northern Nigeria. The war in northern Nigeria is affecting every other part of the country. Because if the situation degenerates further and farmers no longer have access to their farms, the little being produced over there will not be taken to other parts of the country, they will keep it for their own consumption. The Nigerian government must double its effort in combating insecurity especially in the North. The government banned rice importation and the farmers at the region that is producing local rice can no longer go to farms again. That is why a bag of local rice is sold for as high as N80,000.

After conquering Shekau, security operatives are now confronted with another terror kingpin, Turji. What would you say makes these terror kingpins seemingly elusive and invincible?

The community where Turji comes from cannot do anything to help themselves. In a situation where Turji enters a town and you call the military and the police for 24 hours without any response. What do you think they should do? There is nothing they can do about him. During Shekau’s reign, the military claimed they killed him on more than nine different occasions. Now they have repeatedly vowed to get Turji week after week without any success. Security is local, insecurity is local, but it depends. A situation whereby farmers in Zamfara State have to pay tax to Bello Turji before they can access their farms, does it mean the state and the Federal Government have not heard about it? Why is it so difficult for them to track him? Turji has a phone which must have been registered with NIM, why is it difficult to track him? It is very easy to track him if there is a political will. But I am in doubt if Turji is not representing the political interests of some people. If the president gives a marching order that he wants to see him dead or alive in 10 days just as Buhari ordered that he wanted Don Wani dead or alive and he was arrested three days later. In the 80s Babangida ordered the immediate arrest of Anini and he was arrested immediately. The late General Abacha once said, “When insecurity lasts for more than 24 hours it means that the government has sympathy.” If the government makes up its mind that Turji must be arrested in less than five hours and there are no saboteurs among the security operatives, he will definitely be arrested.