The Raging Wildfire Of Insecurity: Need For Security man With Missionary Zeal -By Adekunle Adekoya

FOR many Nigerians, especially in the Northern part of the country, the Christmas season was not merry. At all. It was a period of wailing and gnashing of teeth as terrorists laid siege to many villages in Abuja FCT, Niger, Nasarawa and Plateau states, killing, maiming, and burning houses. Entire local governments and towns and villages in the aforementioned states suddenly woke up and found themselves under attack by gunmen.

For days, an orgy of premeditated arson and genocide went on without let or hindrance, and as tolls were being taken, it came to light that more than 200 persons had lost their lives while more than 1,290 houses had been burn down. As usual, women and children as well as the old and frail suddenly became homeless refugees in their own country, through no fault of their own. While the security agencies, including the Army and Police tried to shut the barn doors after the horses have escaped, it is eminently disappointing that the attacks have continued, undeterred.

Vanguard reported in yesterday’s paper that Garam, which shares boundary with Kuduru, another troubled community in Bwari Area Council of the FCT, has been under severe attacks from bandits since December 24, 2023.

The raging attacks which continued also spread to Zuma community in Bwari Area Council. On December 24, bandits invaded Garam community, which is five minutes drive from Bwari in the FCT, killing a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God, and kidnapping 13 other persons.

On December 28, bandits again invaded Kuduru in the FCT, kidnapping 18 persons. Similarly, on Friday, December 29, bandits invaded Azu in Niger State, killing three people and kidnapping eight others.

Zuma also came under attack, during which two security personnel were shot, while an unknown number of people were abducted. The attack would be the fifth since Christmas eve, with residents putting the estimates of kidnapped people at over 55.

I can go on and on but it is a tale of woes and anguish regarding the cruel fate that has befallen some of our fellow compatriots. What can be done? What should be done by the political class and the security agencies to put a final, definitive stop to these killings?

As our late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo noted: “Problems are like plants. They have roots.” Clearly, our present insecurity conundrum must have roots since we can all remember that apart from the Boko Haram insurgency, these other coordinated attacks seem to have begun shortly after 2015. Is there a political angle to these killings? I am of the opinion that these are not ordinary Nigerians fighting over parcels of land. The people who are perpetrating these killings cannot be fellow Nigerians who just like the crimson colour of blood as it flows from fellow citizens. Who are the people bent on exterminating our people? The security agencies have a duty to find out who they are and take the fight to them. We must realize the type of problem we are facing and devise appropriate solutions to address it. 

Apart from useless rhetoric and consolation visits after mayhem has been committed, I think the security agencies have left a lot undone by not being able to prevent these sad occurrences and resorting to platitudes after carnage has been committed.

Again, I recall that the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Sa’ad Abubakar III, expressed his anger over the Plateau massacre at an event in Bauchi. What he said showed we’re on the same page on this matter. His words: “What happened to our intelligence-gathering mechanism? Can anybody tell me that nobody knows that those attacks were coming up? Whether it is in Sokoto, in Birnin-Kebbi or Kaduna, have we lost our sense of gathering information to avert any of such heinous crimes? Why can’t you be proactive, why can’t you stop such attacks before they happen?” he queried.

From the Sultan’s frustrations, I hereby make the case that one of the things we need now is a securityman with missionary zeal to protect life and limb in Nigeria. Many countries that take security seriously have such men at one time or the other in their history. Some of the famous securitymen of the 20th century included John Edgar Hoover, the founding director of the FBI in the United States.

“The Feds are in town” is an expression that sent many criminals scampering for cover whenever they heard it, while the infamous “Hoover files” haunted many generations of American politicians for decades. Such was the reputation of Hoover’s FBI. What has happened to policing by intelligence here? Where is Nigeria’s version of Hoover? The president, and indeed, the whole of Nigeria needs a missionary securityman to protect us before marauding terrorists and bandits kill all of us.