Growing insecurity spawned by rampant abductions and killings of innocent citizens across Nigeria have led many leaders to caution against the country’s descent into anarchy. Former Defence Minister and Chief of Army Staff Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma told an audience at the 50th birthday anniversary of Nda Isaiah, Leadership Newspaper publisher, in May 2012: “Nigeria is on fire. This house is on fire. The North is on fire. Nigeria is becoming like Somalia. The Somalianisation of Nigeria is taking place right now.”

The warning was given a decade ago but today the national security situation has escalated. It reflects the laidback attitude of previous governments, including the current Federal Government, over national security matters. Some people believe that Nigeria can be transformed but only through radical reforms. On the surface, a revolution sounds logical and easily attainable but we must remember that a revolution comes with so many unintended consequences that could consume even the advocates. 

How does anyone exist pragmatically in present day Nigeria, a country in which people feel unsafe to go to work, to take public transport, to go to church or mosque, to go to the marketplace, to go to school, or to attend public events? The situation is so bad. Insecurity threatens not only the lives of Nigerians but it has also become an impediment on the path of Nigeria’s socioeconomic development. President Muhammadu Buhari understands the dreadful situation, not minding his frequent pretentious claims that he is unaware of events that happen in a country he was elected to govern.

In the existing climate of fear generated by growing insecurity, many people are terrorised and concerned that they could go out in the morning and return in coffins, or worse still, that they could be kidnapped and turned into prized guests of warlords and kidnap kings who reside in dangerous forests. In the current disorderly state in which Nigerians live a life of uncertainty, people dread to think about what could happen to them if they were grabbed by bandits who, most certainly, would demand money for their. Unfortunately, some victims are murdered even after the bandits had been paid.

During his time as president, Goodluck Jonathan was assailed for his soft approach to insecurity and indiscriminate bombing of Nigerian cities and institutions of government by terrorists in the North, as well as militant groups in the Niger Delta. Jonathan’s approach was regarded as a measure of the government’s weak and purposeless response to serious national security problems that threatened the country’s unity.

Compare the situation during Jonathan’s era and the present experience under the government headed by Muhammadu Buhari. There is no basis for comparison. National security has disintegrated since Buhari was elected in 2015. Currently, insecurity has spread to every part of Nigeria. Kidnapping by bandits and terrorists have become so widespread and uncontrollable that the Federal Government appears to have given up. No official of the government can guarantee the safety and security of citizens.

While Jonathan may have given the criminals the impression that his government was patently weak because it called for dialogue with terrorists, particularly Boko Haram in the north and militants in the Niger Delta region, Buhari government’s approach of offering payment in exchange for the release of kidnap victims has proved no better solution to banditry or lawbreaking. That approach is clearly ineffective because it has exposed the government as weak and lacking in strategies of how to deal effectively with terror groups such as bandits, callous herdsmen, and other criminal groups.

The idea that the government can make direct payments to bandits to secure the release of Nigerian citizens held by the criminals is astonishing. It aims to appease rather than send strong messages to criminals. Logically, the more the government pays bandits to secure the release of people held captive by bandits, the more emboldened the bandits would become to stage further abduction missions that would fetch them more cash. It is a wrong and short-sighted way to fight insecurity.

I am not aware of any country in the world where the government buys the freedom of citizens rather than strike forcefully at terrorists in their hideouts. Force is the language that terrorists understand. And force is what the Nigerian government has been unable to use consistently to send the unmistakeably strong message that it does not negotiate or do business with terrorists and bandits. It is easy to understand the philosophy that informs audacious raids by bandits. The more successful raids they carry out to snatch citizens, the more they feel guaranteed they would make more money from the Nigerian government.

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By making unnecessary, unjustified, and imprudent compromises to bandits and terror groups, the Buhari government provides bandits and terror groups with the oxygen bag of sustenance they require to remain in their weird business.

Across the world, many governments have adopted a clear policy of zero tolerance for, and not negotiating with, terrorist organisations. To deal decisively with bandits, the government ought to invest heavily in acquisition of human and technological resources, including intelligence gathering equipment that are effective in confronting criminals and overwhelming them wherever they might reside in the country.

The government should always operate on the basis that bandits cannot have access to greater resources than the Nigerian government. While that might be the case, Buhari and his ministers must engage in soul-searching to understand why money budgeted to bolster national security has not been used effectively in the war against terror. Of course, ministers and senior officials of government understand very well why the money budgeted for enhancement of national security has always been misdirected, embezzled, and misappropriated. The diseases called corruption, greed, and selfishness have ensured that the trend has continued over decades. The government has failed to hold its senior officials accountable for how they misuse taxpayers’ money.

For many years, senior officials of government have failed to demonstrate accountability, responsibility, and transparency in how they spend taxpayers’ money. This is because in Nigeria, as in some other developing African, Latin American, and Asian countries, government money and property are seen as nobody’s money and nobody’s property. They are there to be misappropriated.

All these abuses continue to occur despite the fact that Nigeria has experienced a significant growth in the population of the underclass who have been excluded from the larger society owing to decades of neglect by the government, as well as marginalisation and policy failure. There is also massive youth unemployment and environmental damage that has widened genuine agitations by youth.

For many years, bandits in Nigeria operated and still operate on the rationale that if they grabbed as many people as possible, they would be able to force the government to engage in dialogue that would lead to payment of ransom for the release of their prisoners. That strategy has worked and continues to be effective. This is because the government has failed to articulate a meaningful and pragmatic national security policy to deal with the upsurge in insecurity.

When government responds too late to national security challenges by framing inoperable, inadequate, and unworkable national security policies and strategies designed to tackle a problem that has become intractable, the outcome is usually capitulation by a shameless government.

The growing insecurity in Nigeria has raised troubling questions about the government’s capacity to defend the country. Buhari’s defenders argue we should not hassle the man because national security challenges preceded the onset of Buhari’s administration. That may well be the case but we must never forget that Buhari was not elected to attend only to problems that emerge during his tenure.