With all honesty, without fear of omission or commission, when Bola Ahmed Tinubu joined the presidential race in 2022, I knew he was going to pick his party’s presidential ticket on his way to the presidency at any cost including sponsorship of breakaway threats from his kinsmen.
Tinubu is a hardcore capitalist that loves power and knows what power entails. He loves power for both global recognition and what it can offer.
He knows his profile more than any other person and knows how to recruit some of the best brains to do his biddings as his disciples, stooges and appendages.
He knows he lacks the capacity of a leader Nigeria needs but to him, that is the problem of Nigerians that had nothing to do with his ambition.
He came to power, with a long time regional plan and a sealed agenda which he is systematically implementing with style as the president.
He assembled his yes men in the leadership of the national assembly and kept those rated as may be clogs, in the wheel of implementing his agenda at a far distance but closely monitored.
He relegated his party’s machinery to the back waters in selecting his executive council members as well as other aides not to be distracted from executing his hidden plans.
One may not blame Tinubu for the escalation of security challenges across the country today, but it may be a disservice to ignore his weaknesses in handling the situation with ruthlessness particularly the crisis in Plateau State that has defied solutions over the years since its eruption in 2001 or thereabout due to high class hypocrisy, pretence and insincerity from those their leaders.
There are several factors responsible for the crisis in Plateau State that include; ethnic cleansing, religious bigotry, hate, discrimination by government, land acquisition, political power tussle, rising poverty, unemployment, confusion etc.
From the look of things, Plateau State may never regain its lost glory as the bastion of tourism in Nigeria. It was governed in the past by ethno-religious advocates with poor religious education, absence of sincere fear of God and exposure. Most of those elected to govern the state from 1999-2015, were hypocritical, pretentious and extremely insincere in handling the precarious situation.
It was Jonah David Jang, as the fourth civilian governor of the state (2007-2015) who established a state-funded security outfit with a hidden motive, one sided composition and alleged secret training by the Zionist Israel, Operation Rainbow which has not only woefully failed in all fronts to secure the state, but operates as a backup to native terrorists.
It is a one way security outfit suspected to be the armed wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) that has lost the trust of other faithful and ethnic nationalities in Plateau state which necessitated the recent launch of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Vigilant Group in Nasarawa State for test drive before other state branches would be established.
Therefore, any honest review of contemporary security situation, value for human life and dignity of human person in Plateau state reveals the reality that life in the state is brutally solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short that no responsible investor may wish to visit for business establishment. Those caught in the web, are hurriedly relocating to safer climes, reflecting, the human condition that social contract philosophers referred to as “living in a state of nature”.
As was the case in Hobbes’s state of nature, disadvantaged indigenes (non-Christians) and visitors alike to Plateau live and suffer from constant fear of violent death through organized native terrorist attacks, official frustration from government, denial of right to legally possessed landed property and helplessness.
To Plateau State marauding natives, might has become right; even with other peace loving ethnic nationalities; Igbo, Yoruba, Itsekiri, Ibibio, Anang, Efik, Ekwerre etc surrendering their full freedom to the government in exchange for protection and security, which in most cases never happen, it is simply the case of “woe for the conquered”.
Although, exited governors of Plateau State exhibited high grade of incompetence and hypocrisy in resolving the remote cause (s) of the crisis that has stayed longer than expected, the present governor, Caleb Mutfwang seems determined to subdue the precarious situation. He has so far from his utterances and actions, not taken side publicly but acts as a leader with a sincere mission.
Extending this analysis to national level, according to Beacon Report, 4,067 persons were abducted by bandits and 9,734 others were killed by gunmen in 2023 alone. In some communities, bandits now invade villages in broad daylight, demanding fixed levies, rustling cows, kidnapping, killing, maiming, destroying homes, properties and farms.
To the lucky victims of security crisis, that are still alive to tell their horrifying stories in the hands of bandits and ethnic terrorists, they simply “do not wish anyone to experience what they passed through”, as there is usually no indemnity to those shattered by our broken social and physical security systems.
The problem is not just about the failure of the Tinubu administration to secure the lives and properties of the people, it is the lack of responsibility and impactful results from those entrusted with the mandate to provide public service for public safety. Hence, from the nights of April 14- 15, 2014, when 276 Chibok school girls were kidnapped in Chibok community of Borno State, to the recent gruesome murder of Nabeeha Al-Kadriyar on Friday. January 12, 2024 and the December 24, 2023 genocide in Bokkos local government area of Plateau State, amongst several other cases that Nigerians lost their lives to various forms of violence and insecurity, past and present governments for over a decade have failed to secure any serious conviction against arrested suspects connected to the lingering security crisis including the murder of a retired military General by Berom terrorists at Dura-Du village in Jos South local government of Plateau State and several other innocent souls within Berom dominated areas including federal highways.
Plateau natives erroneously believe the state belongs to them only as if it exists in the outer space, while contributing nothing positive to the development of the state other than trading in hate and violence that has negatively impacted on the economy of the state.
When the first settlers on the Plateau were laboring to establish the entity referred to today as Plateau State, those natives were nowhere to be found or seen until the missionaries arrived for ‘salvation’ and ‘forceful conversion’ of the natives to the alien religion.
They natives claim Christianity in public as their religion while doing the opposite of what the respected religion says in the Holy Bible. It is only in Plateau State of all places on mother earth there are those tagged as Indigenous Muslims but without having Indigenous Christians or Pagans. Those referred to as indigenous Muslims are those indigenes that are Muslims not those tagged as settlers for religious difference.
The beauty of it all is that in the religion of Islam, all adherents are brothers and sisters with no ethnic, regional or any difference. A Muslim in Waziristan is a brother to a fellow Muslim in Bashar or anywhere within the globe. Funny enough, the ill-treatment and discrimination meted out to those tagged as settlers in Plateau State for being Muslims, is same advanced to those so called indigenous Muslims no matter the blood relationship that may exist with the natives.
A Christian or Pagan from any part of the world is by the standard of the natives, an indigene while in actual sense of it the natives are more believers in paganism than the in Christianity the love to claim for pecuniary gains. That is the ailing Plateau State that moves on the reverse gear bubbling with more of beer parlors and Churches as the most lucrative businesses flouted by the natives!
No government official has ever resigned for failure of the state to provide security to the people. No official of any government was ever sacked for inability to secure lives and properties of the people, nor the devastating spate of insecurity abated.
Perhaps, our predication is worsened by the fact that governments at all levels have failed in their approach and commitment to solving the root causes of the situation. Insecurity enablers such as native bandits in Plateau, Benue, Southern Kaduna, Taraba, Fulani bandits, cattle rustlers, unemployment, biting poverty and poor education and exposure, are currently at 8.2percent as at the Q2of 2023 with over 133million Nigerians that are multi-dimensionally poor, inflation expected to peak at 29percent in the Q1 of 2024, lack of basic infrastructure and enabling environment for small and medium enterprises to thrive, have only further deepened our security wahala.
To summarize our situation is to understand that Nigeria currently faces two epidemics—- corruption and insecurity. These two factors are intertwined, as corruption undermines the capability of public officials and public institutions to discharge their duties in securing the life and property of the people.
The issue of policing in Nigeria has become an institution in need, as the police force itself is in dare need of security in most cases, while some Divisional Stations and Outposts close every evening from duty for fear of the obvious.
Officers and men of the Nigeria Police seems to have lost public trust and confidence and more as a Police Service Institution for the elite class alone—out of 400,000 police officers and men, more than 150,000 are attached to ‘thieving’ personalities in government and in politics and other unauthorized persons with some in hidden criminal acts. In the absence of a robust police force, the military institution is dragged into policing unconsciously.
For the avoidance of doubt, Nigeria is not exonerated from the current global landscape of complex crisis and conflicts. The difference between, is the grace and dignity in government response, responsibility and sincere commitment to public safety. In our clime, it is almost like Nigerians are in existence without an overseeing authority. If not, why are Berom tribal terrorists allowed to ambush, rob and murder innocent passers-by along federal roads that passes through their localities without reason? Why are religious preachers allowed a breath of the air of freedom after preaching hate and violence to the gullible? Why are the likes of Isa El-Buba, a self-ordained prophet without proper Biblical education and manners still circulating in the midst of the innocent in Jos? Why are tribal terrorist gangs operating freely in Plateau and other states?
If one can endure the stress to measure how many kilometers have functional presence of government in Nigeria, one will be disturbed by the finding that nearly 60percent of the Nigerian territory is ungoverned but only witnesses the presence of government during electioneering campaigns, elections or collection of revenue from the hapless villagers where the markets exist.
President Tinubu as the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces must give definitive order to the Service Chiefs, with timeline on when to end the widening level of insecurity bedeviling the country.
State Governors as members of the Nigeria Police Council must understand their roles in ensuring that the Nigeria Police Force works for all Nigerians irrespective of class or societal status.
Sub-national governments must ensure the judicious use of security votes on non kinetic measures of social security, as a system for empowering citizens against insecurity.
We must further empower and strengthen the local governments and the traditional institutions for our traditional rulers to have a strong voice in the governing system for efficient public service delivery at the grassroots while hoodlums and those tribal terrorists ambushing and robbing innocent passers-by or attacking federal institutions located in their localities, wasted.
For Nigeria to return to a crisis free state, a revolution is inevitable to clean the Augean stable. We must stage a peaceful or bloody revolution to regain our shattered unity, freedom and progress as a blessed nation. That’s the only option at our disposal!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
