Everywhere you turn to in Nigeria today, all you see are tell-tale signs of a raging war. For the average citizen without the benefit of armed escorts, body guards or police orderlies, simply strolling out of one’s compound at any time of the day has become a very risky venture; embarking on a trip across the highways, seaways and airways has become something to fervently pray over because there is a very high possibility that one may not return home safely due to the murderous activities of armed bandits that have turned the whole country into a killing field.
Everyday chores such as going to the office, religious worship, farm or market have become veritable suicidal missions because there are countless uncontrollable and anarchic armed bandits menacingly out there waiting to kidnap, rape, maim and kill anyone at sight and, to make matters more unbearable for Nigerians, there are usually no security, private or official, available to protect them from these ubiquitous assailants, which makes almost everyone a sacrificial sitting duck available for easy picking by these criminals that are audaciously marauding the land.
The picture one gets is that of the infamous “State of Nature” where life was reputedly “solitary, nasty, brutish and short” due largely to the absence of government as everyone was at that anarchic era, a sovereign unto himself and the operative MO was the survival of the fittest! One major feature of the ongoing war in Nigeria is that it is a one-sided slaughter because it is only the attackers that are armed while the victims are denied the rights to equally armed themselves for self-defense by a legal system that arrogates the duty to protect the citizens to a government that has become clueless about how to live up the high responsibility of governance, including the critical task of protecting the people.
It makes nonsense of the honorific title, “your excellency,” which they bear if they cannot perform one of the core duties of governance that they ought to be excellent in executing, namely, protecting the people who they govern. Nigerians have lost count of these daily tragedies that happen without any visible reprisal from the government whose primary responsibility is the protection of life and property though the criminal justice system.
Anyone who bothers to read the newspapers or listen to the news would be horrified by gruesome stories of mass-kidnapping, abduction of hundreds of school children and the genocidal wiping out of entire rural farming communities as well as the raiding of supposedly “safety sanctuaries” like IDPs and the subsequent carting away of the inmates like cattle meant for abattoirs.
These merely confirm the fact that Nigeria is deep inside a war of a variety worse than that of Gaza and elsewhere because in those other warring places, the parties are identifiable and the battle ground are well-defined amongst the contending armies. In Nigeria, the battle is simply between the armed killers and the defenseless victims with no State actor effectively and decisively stepping in to terminate the unbalanced carnage as a matter of constitutional responsibility. So, the massacre has continued unabated.
It is quite disturbing to see that, despite the many instances in which we have discussed the dire situation of insecurity in this country and how far the situation has steeply metamorphosed into a full-blown warfare, many supposedly enlightened citizens have, for whatever reason, been casting doubts over the possibility of war in a country that is already neck-deep in a conflictual pastime spearheaded by an invading jihadist expeditionary force holding aloft ISIS banner while camouflaging it as those of “herdsmen”.
As we have said elsewhere, “one does not have to have done doctoral studies in the Laws of War, the Hague Conventions, socio-political Conflicts and Strategic studies before knowing that Nigerians are already steep-deep in the trenches battling a brutal invasion from across the borders despite the official ambivalence. It is impossible not to hear and feel the “sights and sounds” of war that is raging across the land… Insecurity, anarchy, widespread antagonism, distrust and escalating economic hardship exacerbated by widespread currency manipulation have become a way of life and, in fact, the new normal.”
So, as far as I am concerned, war is simply the absence of peace, law and order as moderated by social justice fairly dispensed by the government and it is only an irredeemable liar who, after seeing the catalogue of incessant acts of violence, barbarism, absence of public accountability and exponential corruption in the country that would still pretend that ‘all is well’”.
“There are undeniable signs of war everywhere: Almost all the politicians, past and present, have since evacuated their families and monies into safety abroad…” If Nigeria was that safe and secure, why are these VIPs stealthily running away? Why are our politicians avoiding their electoral constituencies and have practically taken refuge in Abuja?
“The foundations of all the problems of Nigeria are traceable to unbridled corruption that have stunted the Republic from its inception and no administration has been able to extirpate it despite the loud anti-corruption sloganeering. It is true that there are obvious structural and sociological fault-lines in the foundational architecture of our federalism which make occasional conflicts almost inevitable but none of them is incurable if we have the right leadership which can dutifully summon the required political courage, sincerity of purpose and the elusive political will to do the needful by delivering equality, constitutionalism and social justice to every citizen.
Corruption is Nigeria’s main problem because it breeds impunity, nepotism and dissatisfaction which in turn spawns related morally debilitative acts like top-to-bottom bribery, stealing, indiscipline, robbery, kidnapping, ethnicity, electoral fraud, sundry abuses, secession, insurrection and, ultimately, terrorism.
This country has indeed been badly governed over the years and it is that unending failure which has emboldened all manner of anarchic and sectarian calculi that are, ab initio, otiose in Nigeria’s secular Republic.”
It is sad that those observations which we made here years ago are still relevant in spite of the series of regime changes that have been taking place in the country since 1999. It is like the case of the ever-changing orchestra whose music has remained the same. Today, the new helmsman is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He is not new to the problems of Nigeria and he certainly knows why certain things are where they are now.
My candid advice to him is that this is the time to creatively change the current unworkable battle strategy that is being deployed to prosecute this war. He would expectedly be opposed by those who profit from the status quo but the nation will be the ultimate beneficiary. This is a critical stage to change operational tactics and even personnel, where possible, in the anti-insurgency war.
So far, the military establishment is not achieving much traction in its engagement with the criminal insurgents largely because there are several layers of saboteurs embedded within its ranks; allegedly, some locals are sympathetic to the insurgents. Is it, therefore, too much of an asking to suggest that President Tinubu rejigs President Jonathan’s botched plan to externally sub-contract aspects of special tactical operations such as the present ineffectual hot pursuits of those who are criminally carting away hundreds of people into forests that are apparently impenetrable to our local military men?
It is difficult to imagine that three hundred live goats could be so easily stolen from a village, no matter how remote, and there would be no trace of their whereabouts even after several years of searching for them? Sadly, in this case, we are talking of human beings who were casually carted away like yam tubers without trace, starting from the abominable raid on Chibok ten years ago. Something profoundly serious is wrong somewhere.
