•Prof Olawale Albert
Former Director of the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan (UI), Prof. Olawale Albert, in this interview, said as long as the likes of President Bola Tinubu lack the political will to tackle insecurity head-on, and prioritise state policing among other interventions, incessant attacks like the Plateau Christmas eve episode would remain routine, reports The Guardian.
How will you assess President Bola Tinubu in handling security issues in the last few months?
President Bola Tinubu is yet to come out with his security management policy. He is yet to make any serious pronouncement on how he is going to secure this country beyond the campaign promises of making Nigeria safer and secure, but we are yet to have a clear policy. What I mean by clear policy is an articulation of how he understands the security problems of the country and how he intends to use the knowledge to develop strategies that are actionable and focusing on his understanding of the problem.
This is because part of the key security challenges in this country is that our leaders have never demonstrated any good understanding of security problems. Let’s take Plateau State for an example, the issues in the state have been happening since the 1990s, but you find every government saying these are unknown criminals and herdsmen. Recently, they said they are political opponents. When you find a political leadership that is not able to do what is called framing, then that political leadership can’t solve your problems.
Framing is when real problems happen, the leader will come out in a very clear term to explain what has happened, identify those people responsible and marshal out what will be done to address the challenge. Let me use the September 11 attack as an example. In a few hours it happened, the President of America came up to say al Qaeda was responsible and where they could likely be found. He mentioned those harbouring these terrorists and urged the countries to surrender them on time.
The American president declared that the campaign against those who were responsible for September 11 would be global. He emphasised that there was no sitting on the fence. You are either for us or against us. So, he declared a global war against terrorism.
Now, these people went to Plateau State and they killed as many as they wanted to kill. They went to Kaduna State, killed as many as they wanted to kill as well as other places to wreak havoc. But Nigeria is yet to come out with a clear statement on who is responsible for this problem and what they are looking for. Are they looking for land? Is it a religious conflict? Is it an ethnic conflict? Are the attackers from outside?
When Buhari was in government, he went to Benue State and said the terrorists were their neighbours. Then, he came out again and said they were foreigners from Libya. Buhari left office unable to tell us who were attacking Nigerians. Unfortunately, Tinubu has started his own on Buhari’s trajectory. So, what we have discovered in this nation is that, since the time of Goodluck Jonathan, every president we have produced is the chief mourner of the nation.
You only hear them saying they have declared seven days of mourning; the president and his ministers would go there to visit victims and then some colourless characters would say they are donating N100 million and all those. We have not been able to know what is wrong with us security-wise. This is because we are responsible for the problem. If you are responsible for a problem, you won’t point fingers at anyone to accuse him or her of being responsible.
So, lack of political will to identify the enemy of this nation is the number one problem. While there is no will to identify those who are responsible, you make the work of security management very difficult for the unfortunate people who are managing it. You know those responsible but you still send soldiers there. The soldiers themselves know that you are not ready to identify the enemy. They, too, are afraid to say these are the enemies.
As a scientist, I want to say lack of political will start first and foremost, with our reluctance and inability to frame the problem. Who is the enemy? Who are these people killing Nigerians in their hundreds? How many arrests have you ever made? How many of these people have you ever prosecuted? Gumi went to the forest in the Northwest, he met these people, held meetings with them and he came back. Funny enough, the government is still claiming that they don’t know who these people are.
One of the terrorists came out to get a chieftaincy title. He brought his friends, they danced and did all they wanted to do and went back. But three or four days later, you saw some characters saying they were looking for them. Who are you looking for? So, we will continue this way so long as the political will to deal with the problem is not there. Plateau will continue to be Plateau; Kaduna will continue to be Kaduna, Benue will continue to be; Zamfara State will continue to be the way it is. Katsina State will continue to remain the way it is.
Now, Sokoto State has joined the league. Therefore, to me, Tinubu is yet to show that he is different from Buhari. We blamed Buhari a lot when he was in government; that he was all responsible for these problems and probably, his kinsmen. We said all kinds of things. But what do we say now that the problem is even escalating? In Abuja, we are told that people are kidnapped on a daily basis. The bandits go into homes now to pick people and ask for ridiculous amounts of money as a ransom. If the person refuses to pay, he will be killed. We are in serious trouble, but the solution will come, first and foremost, when there is political will to deal with the issue.
It was said that the terrorists operated for 48 hours on the Plateau without resistance from any of the security operatives.
It isn’t only about 48 hours without help that we should focus on. The people themselves said they sent SOS about 137 times. Let’s forget about the length of hours that the bandits were in the communities. Let’s call attention to the number of times they alerted security operatives to the impending doom that eventually befell them. That is why some of us who are scholars in this field are becoming a little bit worried about this idea of setting up an early warning system. Early warning system will say this problem is mostly likely to happen within this certain period.
But when you generate the security alert and intelligence and you give it to security people and there is no response what do you do? So, what is happening to them on the Plateau as claimed by the community is that they knew that the problem would happen. They alerted security agents and they never got any response until these criminals came to slaughter them.
I listened to one of the survivors of the incident on the television, who said he could recognise the faces of some of the attackers as people around them. He claimed that the attackers are the people they know within the community; that they are not totally strangers and that, in fact, one of them called his name when they were attacking him. I don’t know how we are going to get out of this mess. For now, the only thing one could say is that the solution will start when we have the political will to do what is expected of us.
I think our security operatives are afraid. They know that the political will is not there and they are protecting their career by not going too far.
How would you assess the way the state governor responded?
The state governor responded in bitterness. We saw him on the television. He looked helpless. You could see his agony and disappointment but there is little he could do. He doesn’t have the right kind of security network to deal with it. He inherited the problem. So, Simon Lalong that came before him experienced the same thing. He is experiencing a worse dimension of the problem. If you say you want to assess him, the question will be around what parameters? He doesn’t control the police and the army. The only thing the governor could do as he is doing is to feed the displaced persons from the conflict. After you have given them food, what next? These people have been expelled from their communities. How do you return them to their communities?
Can state policing address this matter?
State/community policing is the best solution. However, at the altar of partisan politics, Nigeria is not ready to do the right thing. The community members know who these criminals are. Why don’t we transfer the power to them to police their communities? The example that readily comes to mind is the kind of change that we have seen as a result of the Amotekun corps since its introduction in the Southwest.
Many of these problems you see in other parts of the country are not in the region because the people now police their community. You can’t hide in their forests. You can’t exhibit your criminalities on their streets and communities. They’ll deal with you immediately. But winning the next election is what an average politician is thinking of. If there is state and community police, they won’t be allowed to steal electoral boxes.
So, partisan politics is what is preventing us from solving our security problems. My prayer is that this country will not be taken over by these criminal elements freely circulating around the country. They are gaining upper hands every day, killing policemen, soldiers and other security operatives. They are not just killing the ordinary citizens, they kill anybody around. Everybody is afraid. People are running away from this country not for economic or job reasons but they are afraid of their personal safety. They have everything but they can’t walk freely on the road. They are not too sure of what will happen to them tomorrow. Therefore, they’re just selling their properties and leaving Nigeria. Who are you leaving the country for? Our politicians who are supposed to be dealing with these issues are not interested in them. They ride bulletproof cars. We are not blessed with sincere leaders. This is why our problems are escalating.
