At a time the military is facing a barrage of accusations for human rights abuse and wild killings, the Federal Government has commenced the deployment of troops in the South-West region. Specifically, the military operation is the response to the cataclysmic wave of insecurity in the region, which has rendered it vulnerable to incessant criminal activities. Government is under an obligation to provide security, but experience teaches that resorting to the military for internal security duties in Nigeria is fraught with risks for citizens. Moreover, success is not even guaranteed.
The deployment of soldiers to secure the South-West was first mooted by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo shortly after the killing of Funke Olakunri on a highway in Ondo State last July. Her gruesome death and the abduction of others on highways in the region, which have been linked to Fulani herdsmen, have exposed the country’s ineffective security architecture.
Apparently as a follow-up to the people’s outcry over the rising criminality, Anthony Omozoje, a major-general and the GOC, 2 Division, Ibadan, has said, “The (Nigerian) Army has already deployed its men in the South-West. We are conducting various operations in the region.” As encouraging as it sounds, this has grim implications. Undoubtedly, the conduct of soldiers in previous and ongoing security operations has left a bitter taste of oppression, abuses, brutality and killings among the populace. This should not be overlooked in this assignment.
Neither accountable to the civil authorities nor the police in their joint operations, soldiers have been fingered repeatedly for their excesses in interactions with members of society. During the last Id el Kabir, a group of soldiers, allegedly protecting their civilian principal in a land dispute, went haywire in the Isheri border community in Lagos. At the end of their wild shooting, two people lay dead. Callously, they went to a hospital in the area and allegedly stabbed one of the injured civilians to death.
That episode is as bloody as the recent breach in Taraba State, in which soldiers manning a checkpoint on the Ibi-Jalingo Highway slaughtered three police officers and a civilian, the Nigeria Police Force said. Some operatives of the Intelligence Response Team, a crack anti-kidnapping team of the Inspector-General of Police, had arrested a wanted kidnap kingpin, Hamisu Wadume. They were gunned down in cold blood by soldiers from 93 Battalion, despite properly identifying themselves. It is depressing that in trying to curtail terrorism, the deployment of troops is unwittingly creating another security monster.
Among other forms of misconduct, a soldier is on trial for allegedly raping a 300-level student of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko. He had singled her out on a bus at a checkpoint before committing the offence. Long before a presidential task force was mandated in May to clear the gridlock bedevilling operations at the Apapa seaports and link roads in Lagos, soldiers had faced accusations of extortion there. Really, the military is becoming as notorious as the police in extortion and abuse of human rights. Recently, naval ratings reportedly assaulted two journalists – Abiola Oduola and Segun Ojo. Their offence was that they parked their car in front of a building.
Two recent similar incidents provoked outrage in Abia State when soldiers went wild in Aba, flogging men for wearing dreadlocks and tinting their hair. At a checkpoint in Abia, a lance corporal, Johnson Ajayi, attached to the army’s Forward Operations Base Ohanze, had tragically shot Chimaobi Nwogu dead, over the refusal of the motorcyclist to part with a bribe of N100. Soldiers are notorious for excesses during gridlock, harassing and brutalising motorists. On the pretext of security checks on the highways, they compound gridlock, taking advantage of the situation to fleece commercial drivers.
In a landmark case, the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court last week ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria “to immediately pay the sum of N8 billion” awarded in favour of some communities in Benue State. In 2001, soldiers had invaded the communities, destroying lives and property. Before that, soldiers had flattened Odi community in Bayelsa State, massacring hundreds and setting houses on fire in retaliation for an earlier killing.
Repeatedly, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused Nigerian soldiers of human rights abuses, which the military usually denies. Citing these abuses, the United States, under ex-President Barrack Obama, refused to sell military equipment to Nigeria in its fight against Boko Haram jihadists.
On the contrary, military troops are rarely deployed for internal operations in advanced countries of Europe, in spite of terror attacks. American soldiers are noticeable during natural disasters, helping in distressed communities. Under Operation Temperer in 2016, the British Ministry of Defence said “only in the most extreme situations would the military be deployed in routine patrolling of the streets of London.” This is the ideal in most of Europe because, ordinarily, the duty of the military is to fight wars.
In order to minimise the atrocities associated with the military deployment in civil duties, the solution is to spell out the rules of engagement for the troops, with a specific time frame and their operations subsumed under police coordination. There should be no checkpoints as bandits do not drive along the roads but come out of bushes to kill or kidnap. The military should be on patrol. The public should be availed of telephone numbers, social media links/handles, and desks at police and military formations where they can report soldiers’ wrongdoing. A joint security panel and court-martial should be established to tackle reported cases of abuse.
Eventually, Nigeria cannot dodge a holistic security reform any longer. As things stand, the police are toothless in the fight against criminality. The take-off point is to instil competence in them through training. But the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, should first withdraw the officers attached to individuals and reassign them to field operations.
Supported by technology, this will ensure that Buhari’s plan to deploy drones and CCTV cameras on the highways to aid anti-crime operations succeeds. Governors should form security outfits and secure the approval of the Federal Government to install security equipment.
Nigeria’s security chaos is traceable to its centralised police structure. By taking away this abnormality, states will engineer their own security systems to suit their localities. Ultimately, the governors should pitch for decentralised policing, as is the norm in federal political systems.
