The United Nations Country Director in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, last week raised the alarm over the number of Nigerians killed through kidnapping and banditry in the last six months. He noted that over 1,400 people had been killed and that killings by armed herdsmen and bandits now out-number the killings by Boko Haram terrorists. Mr. Kallon who was in Benue State to exchange views with the State Governor, Samuel Ortom, in Makurdi decried the number of casualties as excessive and intolerable.
We cannot but agree with the UN Country Director that the casualty figures are outrageous. The figures speak loudly that things are severely wrong with the nation’s security. We would never tire to remind our security chiefs for the umpteenth time that Section 14 (2) (b) of the 1999 Constitution as amended states: “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” What is also disconcerting is that although we do not have any doubt about the figures quoted by the UN chief, as alarming as it appears, we are appalled that not much of prosecution is noticeable compared with the number of crimes behind the figures.
It is all too clear to observers that although the nation is beset with problems of internal corruption, unemployment, and other economic problems, yet it is easy to see that the most immediate problem of the country now has to do with the security of life and property. A situation in which 1,400 persons were killed in six months, separate from the casualties from the Boko Haram war, is beyond what the country can tolerate.
Many have traced this upsurge in violence to the wide availability of small arms and light weapons whose proliferation has always facilitated the perpetration of violence. It is not for nothing that our laws insist that only the armed forces and the police and properly licenced citizens should be able to possess these weapons. Yet in recent weeks we have been informed, for instance, in the Police-Army-Wadume case in Taraba State, how a citizen of questionable character was able to acquire lethal weapons effortlessly with cash. This has exemplified not just the availability but the ease of transfer of these instruments of death. From all appearances, these weapons enter the country through routes which are presumably guarded and protected and where we have officials whose duty is to prevent the infiltration of these weapons through our security system. Last year the nation cheered as the Nigeria Customs Service intercepted hundreds of pump action rifles imported from Turkey, a clear indication that perhaps, many of these arms are coming into the country through regular routes and sneak in on the loss of concentration of relevant officials, or through the corruption route in which everything goes. We, therefore, urge the customs and border patrol agents to double their efforts.
There is a tendency to underestimate the Police voluntary arms and weapons buy-back. Yet in recent times we have seen it yield caches of weapons in Rivers, Anambra, Benue, Zamfara and Katsina states. The government, Federal and states, should encourage the police, set aside some amount for weapons buy-back, if only because each of those weapons in the wrong hands is capable of causing untold damage, even deaths. It is necessary to also shut down the gun makers themselves wherever they are found because in an earlier era, they were easy to ignore because their firearms technology was rudimentary. That is no more the case. They are now capable of producing sophisticated weapons of different capabilities. Effective surveillance should be mounted on known arms manufacturing districts. Another factor is traced to leakages from the police and the military. We have in the past had armed robbers confess that their weapons were rented from or stolen from the military in connivance with serving officers. Such leakages must be plugged by enforcing disciplines in the armed forces and the Police.
Utmost on the list of anxieties is the unnatural situation in which crimes are committed and no one seems to be punished or accountable. We are uncertain that there would be up to a hundred prosecutions for the 1,400 killings cited by the UN Country Director. Our laws are clear about what to do when crime is committed and we just continue to trust that suspects must be tried publicly and if convicted, sentenced. We must also acknowledge the need for a change in our Police structure and the recruitment of 40,000 new officers and men to strengthen the force and hopefully end the carnage.