For a country not known to be in conflict with an external aggressor, Nigeria has turned into a huge killing zone. According to the National Bureau Statistics (NBS), over 614,937 people have been killed under circumstances associated with the activities of unidentified gunmen, religious extremists and non-state actors controlling territories.
Having come from a federal agency which unlike others enjoys an appreciable level of credibility, the data from the NBS is a grim representation of the level of failure of state institutions charged with the task of protecting lives. If in just 12 months, May 2023 and April 2024, over 614,937 were killed by non-state actors in a country not subjected to external aggression, there is no clearer indication that the state security institutions are failing.
Probably, due to Nigeria’s vaunted population of more than 200 million, the reported 614,937 lives lost may not alarm those holding the levers of national political and security apparatus. But the number is nearly 50 percent of Mauritius’s population of 1,235,000 people and more than Cape Verde’s 491,100 people, three times the 228,300 people that populate Sao Tome and Principe. These are African countries.
Elsewhere, the death count is more than Malta’s 539,607 population, almost equal to Luxembourg’s 673,036 and about 30 percent of Slovenia’s 2,118,697. These are some of the European countries Nigerians emigrate to as economic refugees.
The NBS figures also showed that from what started as a selective campaign of kidnap of foreign oil workers in the earlier days of militancy in the Niger Delta, kidnap has become a big industry where virtually every strata of government machinery is profitably involved.
In its report entitled The Crime Experienced and Security Perception Survey (CESPS) 2024, the NBS stated that over 2,235,954 people were kidnapped within the same period. At a generously conservative estimate of N2.7 million paid as ransom every month, N2.2 trillion is believed to have been armtwisted out of the families of hapless victims by kidnappers.
How could we have gone so deep into the abyss? A combination of ethnic and religious politics with a state security apparatus rigged to provide cover for the perpetrators largely account for this. At the peak of the killings in Benue and Plateau states by militant cattle herders, then President Muhammadu Buhari provided the classical case of rogue leadership.
After repeated mass killings in many communities without condemnation from his Aso Rock or action taken to stem the killings, Buhari eventually succumbed to pressure and visited Benue State after another round of mass murders. “Accommodate your neighbours” was all he told the bereaved communities. The former military dictator has the distinction of being aloof to the serial killings carried out by his kin and generally tolerated the horror. He had a passion for getting his Fulani folks to live in every state and community in the country. Unfortunately, he was not inclined to carry out his scheme in an orderly manner that would not disrupt the lives of indigent people. Using Ruga and other fancy schemes, he sought to impose his Fulani kith and kin on other people’s lands. He came unstuck in the South, but effectively deployed the jack boot in the North, especially the Middle Belt. It was a costly venture in human lives.
All the indices of a failing society are quite manifest in Nigeria. A lot of things can go wrong with a society and they can still trudge on with hope that ultimately the rough edges will smoothen up. But when lives are routinely at risk, routinely taken and a complicit security system routinely overlooks the criminal enterprise, there is little to build an enduring society on. That is the point Nigeria is at now.
In an atmosphere where the security agencies seem to be unable to check the marauders, it is easy to hold them culpable. That will be oversimplifying the peculiar challenge the country faces. It starts with the leadership. The country is foisted with leadership that has never been driven by the desire to build a nation. That was made abundantly clearly by the genesis of the armed and violent campaigns across the zones. When the military was empowered by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s administration took the battle to Boko Haram and other islamist insurgents, Buhari called the onslaught as a fight against the north. He cautioned against killing his people as some other northern leaders as if on cue, dubbed the insurgents freedom fighters.
The art of taking power back to the North in the run up to the 2015 elections took Nigeria to uncharted territories. As admitted by Nasir el-Rufai, Fulani militants were recruited across West Africa to start sectarian violence if Goodluck Jonathan had somehow won the election. He didn’t, but that did not save the country from a burgeoning nightmare. It was one they may have initially enjoyed, but as it morphed into a Frankenstein, it took a life of its own. El Rufai as governor of Kaduna State vainly tried to buy back the peace in his area by paying money from public funds to the killers. It was too late. Today, the militants have become an occupation force of their own.
The national question now revolves around restoring security to the various zones. Amazingly, some politicians are still averse to state police with the idiotic belief that governors will use them for personal battles. Such view is espoused by those who benefit from the siege on the country while federal budgetary allocation to the military continues to balloon with little changing.
Nigeria transited into a huge killing field with no indication that the present security architecture will turn the tide. There is a glimmer of hope though. More states are acknowledging that localising the security system is key to saving the country. We are on the brink of becoming a failed state. If heavily armed non-state actors continue their free reign of mass killings under any guise and there is no retribution, sooner than later, neighbourhoods, communities and individuals will have to wholesale depend on their efforts to secure themselves. It is already happening. Although the poor state of the economy has wrought despair on Nigerians, a safe environment for farming and free enterprise would have mitigated the hardship.
It’s up to President Tinubu to hasten the process of rejigging the country, especially in the area of security. Communities should not be sitting ducks for armed marauders with a destructive agenda, knowing succour and help will likely not come from federally-controlled security agencies. State governors should shun political considerations and join the President to take over the responsibility of keeping their people alive. For now, rural communities bear a disproportionate brunt of the killings and destruction. It will not remain so much longer.
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