Nigeria is in a condition of confusion. Governments exist for two major reasons: to safeguard people’s lives and property, and to provide for their wellbeing. Any extra justification is accidental, rather than important. This indicates that any country with a government that cannot ensure the protection of its citizens and property is failing to meet its fundamental commitments.
Nigeria has been terribly ineffective in defending its residents and their property for decades, not to mention the country’s successive administrations’ inability to assure its people’s basic well-being. The majority of Nigerians are required to supply schools, roads, energy, hospitals, public transportation, and, most recently, security services.
Given that Nigerian residents are mostly self-sufficient, one would ask why there is a government in the first place. The governing elite appears to be unconcerned about whether or not the public dies. Terrorism has penetrated the country and gained prominence in politics since 2009, when Mohammed Yusuf led the Boko Haram faction to oppose the Borno state government during Modu Sheriff’s governorship.
Since then, Boko Haram has reinforced its position by forming alliances with ISIS West Africa, Al Qaeda in the Maghreb, and mercenary terrorists from Mali, Somalia, and other countries to establish a safe haven in Nigeria. Apart from making considerable advancements in the Middle Belt, North West, and South, Boko Haram and its allies have maintained their domination and stranglehold on the North East and are still aggressively striving to gain access to the country’s southern regions.
As if Boko Haram’s terrorism wasn’t enough, bandits who were purportedly smuggled into the nation for an election in 2014 have now evolved into a full-fledged terrorist organization, according to Nigerian judges. Bandit-inspired terrorism has dominated the North West and is now spreading to the Middle Belt and Southern areas, where it has taken over woods.
Farmers in various states pay terrorists to enter their farms, and most Nigerian farmers have stopped farming altogether, leading in food shortages and food hunger.
Killer herders, on the other hand, have been having a field day, particularly in the country’s eastern and center belt areas. They’ve resisted being brought under control. They kill, rape, and drive out residents in Niger’s Middle Belt and Southern Kaduna regions, taking and appropriating their property in the process.
It is worth noting that the World Termism Index ranks killer herdsmen as the fourth worst terror organization in the world.
This suggests that three of the world’s deadliest terrorist organizations are headquartered in Nigeria, and the country’s security forces are overloaded in their efforts to control them. Even with the valiant efforts of officers and soldiers unleashed in combat, structures, political will, operational strategic plans, motivation, training, arms, equipment, and a slew of other factors have conspired to make Nigeria’s fight against terrorism and insecurity chaotic and disastrous.
As with every command operation, political will is the most important and devastating factor. The President is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and since the outbreak of terrorism in Nigeria in 2009, the country’s presidents have placed much too much emphasis on politics.
Goodluck Jonathan’s approach to addressing instability and terrorism was flawed from the start of his presidency. He gave too much credence to northern leaders’ assertions, notably General Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of the major opposition at the time, who accused him of weakening and depleting the north in the fight on terrorism.
Some northern politicians described the terrorists as political agitators, comparable to insurgents in the Niger Delta. Many of them urged that General Azubuike Ihejirika be prosecuted by the ICC for his efforts to root out Boko Haram militants in the early stages.
Jonathan failed to tackle the threat of terrorism because he succumbed to emotional blackmail and pressure from northern leaders, and by the time he did, it was nearly too late. Strong politicians even stopped Jonathan from buying weapons for the country’s soldiers, who were dying in battle owing to insufficient supplies and risky politics.
These traitorous lawmakers were successful in convincing the US administration to prohibit arms shipments to Jonathan’s government; the US agreed and even pushed its allies to follow suit, alleging abuses of human rights. A sovereign nation is breaching the human rights of terrorists who are killing people and wrecking churches and mosques and must be denied a supply of weapons. In my perspective, that is a weird US policy under President Barack Obama. The US government, then led by Obama, had to deal with Jonathan over the passing of an anti-gay bill, which might explain their unusual behavior.
Jonathan attempted to buy guns on the illicit market in South Africa out of desperation. Money for the guns and planes was brought into custody in South Africa after a security network was alerted. Nobody knows for certain whether the money was recovered to this day, but political powers working with foreign governments to remove Jonathan at all costs undoubtedly thwarted the attempt to purchase weapons, even from the underground market, and the growing level of insecurity in the country was considered the most effective weapon by the dark forces for achieving the strategic goal of removing Jonathan.
General Muhammadu Buhari took power in May 2015, following his involvement in resisting and undermining Jonathan’s anti-Boko Haram operations. As a result, Buhari’s hesitant attitude to confronting terrorism and insecurity did not surprise anyone.
Two of the three forms of terrorism headquartered in Nigeria—bandits and killer herdsmen—did not receive the attention they needed under Buhari, who considered them as ordinary agitators and maybe criminals. As a result, under Buhari’s eight-year reign, these two lethal terror groups have been allowed to thoroughly establish themselves in Nigeria. The Buhari government made a big error, whether unintentionally or willfully, in seeing bandits as simply agitators and even businesses battling for survival, regardless of how they came into the nation.
An emir in Zamfara turbaned one of the terrorist commanders, Bello Turuji, in front of a hundred other bandits/terrorists. In addition, a then-serving northern governor was photographed posing with robbers with military assault rifles in an effort to pacify the terror group.
On national television, another northern governor acknowledged to paying killer ranchers to prevent them from killing farmers in retribution. Most notably, a governor who is still in office stated on national television that they are in charge of a project to move a certain ethnic minority that is stateless and trapped in Africa in Nigeria.
Given this context, it is unsurprising that Nigerians are surprised by the country’s growing and deteriorating security. Nigeria’s political leaders have severely harmed the country by interfering with national security, resulting in rising instability.
For a solution, the President, as commander-in-chief, must demonstrate the political will to enact difficult measures. Terrorist groups and those who fund them should be punished as terrorists, not as criminals. To exterminate terrorism, the President must issue extremely specific matching commands to military and law enforcement officers. After acquiring the appropriate tools, the President should relieve any service heads, general officers commanding, intelligence chiefs, and operational commanders who are unable to carry out his precise commands within the deadline.
Radical and exceptional steps must be done to destroy terrorism in Nigeria. Declaring a state of emergency for national security, the president could work with state governors and the federal capital territory minister to form civil Joint Task Groups comprised of retired military and police officers, hunters, and volunteers willing to receive training to assist the police and army.
Accountability is also a significant consideration. Commanders, officers, and men who are hostile, complacent, or suspected of cooperation should be dealt with exemplarily. For example, two years ago, terrorists invaded Kuje jail and liberated their companions with little resistance from the country’s security services.
Kuje has many DPOs and a Police Area Command. They should have been held accountable for what occurred, but that never happened.
Numerous jail break-ins have happened around the country. The jailbreaks in Owerri and Benin are especially instructive and stunning because of their locations and the long hours they lasted without interference from the police or any other security agency. The Area and Division Police Commands should have been held responsible for the jailbreaks. If police or any other security organization is unable to tackle such terrorist actions, it may indicate complacency or complicity.
The idea here is that the President must demand timeliness and total responsibility from the officers and soldiers entrusted to these operational commands via the NSA, service chiefs, and military and police commanders. If the fight against terrorism, violent crime, and insecurity in general is to be successful, the traditional vague directives that hold no one accountable for apathy and complicity must be abandoned.
Finally, the President should appoint a technical committee to advise on the next steps for implementing State Police and Community Police. These measures must be implemented promptly before Nigeria is fully overtaken by terrorism and insecurity.
Since President Bola Tinubu assumed office on May 29, 2023, there have allegedly been over 200 violent attacks in the FCT’s six Area Councils. The sad events claimed the lives of 87 FCT people, while another 176 were kidnapped.
Nigeria is on the verge of disaster, and President Tinubu must lead the effort to save it.
