Over the years, one of the direst consequences of Nigeria`s leadership failures is that an increasing and almost unbearable amount of pressure has come to be put on the structures which make the Giant of Africa one country.
This amount of pressure which has constantly continued to result in friction between the different participants in Nigeria`s political processes, and fissures in the different layers of the country has constantly come to be generated because there has not been a lot of clarity or sustainability about the way the country is currently set up and run.
Nigeria`s inability to clarify the roles of the different players within it over the years has led to no little disillusionment. Many of those who have been consistent in taking Nigeria to task over the awkward federalism it practices have been consistent in pointing out the flaws of the country`s own version of federalism. With 35 states and the center, Nigeria`s federal system of government is built to ape that of the United States. However, in Nigeria, in spite of what appears to be clarity in the constitution, there been no little locking of horns in the last few years over who gets what in Nigeria.
Friction between the state, but especially deep-seated suspicion that the country`s federalism has become too unwieldy for its own good has been at the heart of the calls and cries of all those say that they have been hoping and holding out for better Nigeria for the country to be restructured.
The question of restructuring the country has been a burning one for many years now as stakeholders in the Nigerian project have come to the unmistakable realization that the power-sharing arrangement in the country is simply not working to give the country the best chance of becoming what its teeming population expects it to be.
However, over the years, the question of restructuring Nigeria has always been met by stiff opposition by some ethnic sections of the country in an epic demonstration of just how much the country is divided along ethnic lines.
A state at bay
Nigeria`s nightmarish torture at the hands of insecurity in the last decade has not been equally distributed even if it has been evenly distributed. Some states have been more affected than others. Of the states that have been more affected than others, Benue State will take some beating.
Dubbed the ‘food basket of the nation’ for the prodigious farming prowess of its people, the state has always prided itself on its ability to produce enough food not just for itself but for the entire country, and even for export.
However, in the last couple of years, the tension between the state where many rural dwellers live on nothing but their farms, and herdsmen who move their cattle from place to place in search of greener pastures have gone up a notch to exacerbate Nigeria`s gripping and blinding struggle with insecurity.
The rest of the country has got used to being haunted by news of death and destruction coming out of Benue State as a result of clashes between farmers and herdsmen. Hundreds have been slaughtered with many communities razed. Countless people have become displaced within the state as a result of these clashes which have seemingly defied every solution.
So audacious have the attackers of Benue people grown in recent times that some years ago, a sacrilegious attempt was made on the life of the state governor Mr. Samuel Ortom when he visited his farm within the state.
A bilious bickering
The toll these conflicts have taken on the lives of the long-suffering people of Benue State in the last decade or so has been unimaginable. While these attacks that compel national attention have raged unchecked, politicians within the ranks of the Benue State Government and the Federal Government have bickered and squabbled over political differences in scenes that amount to playing politics with the lives and property of people who have inexcusably known so little peace for far too long. The bickering has especially increased since the Mr. Samuel Ortom dumped the ruling All Progressives Congress for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party to drag the state into the wilderness of opposition politics.
A recent move by the Governor has raised eyebrows. On Thursday, October 13,2022, the first batch of conscripts into the newly established Benue State Community Volunteer Guards was inducted during an elaborate ceremony in Makurdi, the Benue State Capital.
At the ceremony, Mr. Ortom launched into a lamentation of the security situation in Benue State before talking up community policing as a first step to state police while further lamenting that a request to the federal government to procure arms for the newly established guards have gone unanswered for more than three months now.
It was not long ago that Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu the Governor of Ondo State made a similar lamentation. It is not really about state governments getting on a warpath with the Federal Government. Rather, it is about the security of lives and property. If the Federal Government is saying that there is no need for community vigilantes in the states to bear arms, then it must demonstrate that its commitment to securing lives and property in every state in Nigeria is total and trumps every other consideration.
Failing that, what moral authority would it have to ask states not to arm vigilantes to safeguard communities torn apart by terrorism and threats of terrorist attacks? None, it appears. Absolutely none.
Kene Obiezu,
Twitter:@kenobiezu
