Many communities in Nigeria are enduring anguish arising from the failure of the state to protect them. For these unfortunate citizens, life has lost its meaning. Swathes of territories are at the mercy of bandits, terrorists, Fulani herdsmen militias, and kidnappers or all rolled into one as their modus operandi of violence gradually tends to blur their differences.
From Zamfara to Katsina, Niger to Benue, Taraba to Nasarawa and Sokoto to Kaduna states in the North-West/North-Central and Borno in the North-East, the story of hopelessness is uniform. The symptoms of failure of Nigeria’s leadership and its state are obvious in these insecure territories. Many areas have been abandoned to bandits and terrorists; they have become places that even the so-called chief security officers of the states (governors) and security agencies dare not venture into.
In Niger, where the state governor negotiated and rewarded criminality with amnesty, bandits have brazenly placed communities under curfew and circumscribed people’s movement during their active periods – when they engage in cattle rustling unhindered. In places like Kudodo, Galapai, Dnakpala, Makera and Dnalgwa communities in the Shiroro Local Government Area, bandits move from house to house unchallenged to carry out their criminal activities.
For Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina, home state of the President, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), the ungoverned territories are embarrassingly large; nine out of the 34 local government areas of the state are affected by banditry, while only about 30 police officers are manning 100 villages in the state. This is a tacit admission of failure by the governor who had also negotiated and signed a futile peace accord with the bandits terrorising the state last year.
Basically, those affected are victims of a failed federal structure, ineffective leadership at the state level and nonexistent local governance. And the only time they see anything being done about their plight is when their leaders negotiate with their tormentors, hoping forlornly that dishonourable people will honour the agreements. Indeed, Masari later confessed during a BBC interview that the criminals failed to honour the agreement, vowing that his administration would no longer engage in any negotiation with them. Banditry in the state started in Jibia, Batsari, Dan Musa, Safana, Kankara, Sabuwa, Faskari and Dandume LGAs but has since spread to several others.
A 2018 Amnesty International report documents “violent clashes between members of farmer communities and members of herder communities in Nigeria, particularly in the northern parts of the country, over access to resources: water, land and pasture.” It said the failure of the government to protect lives and property by “refusing to investigate, arrest and prosecute perpetrators of attacks” fuels impunity, resulting in attacks and reprisal attacks, with at least 3,641 people killed between January 2016 and October 2018, 57 percent of them in 2018 alone. The report focused on Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Taraba, Zamfara, Nasarawa and Plateau states.
As this happens in the North-West and North-Central, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, a splinter of Boko Haram, is waxing stronger in the North-East and taxing residents for the semblance of administration it provides in the absence of effective governance. The International Crisis Group report (2019) details how the terrorist group has been filling gaps in governance and service delivery, thereby cultivating a level of support among local civilians. “It digs wells, polices cattle rustling, provides a modicum of health care and sometimes disciplines its own personnel whom it judges to have unacceptably abused civilians. In the communities it controls, its taxation is generally accepted by civilians, who credit it for creating an environment where they can do business and compare its governance favourably to that of the Nigerian state,” the report said.
In these ungoverned territories, apart from the bloodletting, disruption of commerce and farming, every semblance of social life has been destroyed. The situation already threatens the food security of the entire country. But unfortunately, the Nigerian leadership continues to live in denial of its dysfunctional state and will rather run to negotiate with terrorists and bandits than discuss with law abiding citizens who demand that the country, along with its security architecture, be restructured for improved efficiency.
For the assessors of the annual Fragile States Index (formerly known as the Failed States Index), Nigeria ticks all the boxes. The FSI assesses 178 countries based on a measurement of the social, economic, and political pressures that each country faces. ‘The 2020 Fragile 15: Behind the Fragile States Index Rankings, Lives Upended’, listed Nigeria 14th out of 15 countries ranked at the top, which are also home to the world’s most pressing humanitarian crises. Depressingly, Nigeria is in the same league with Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Haiti and Chad.
The report stressed that the “Boko Haram conflict began in 2010 and has so far killed 40,000 people; at least 1.5 million people have been displaced; approximately 1.2 million Nigerians are beyond the reach of aid agencies and 50 percent of Nigerians live in extreme poverty.” It noted that “Nigeria is wobbling,” as earlier territorial gains made by the military against the jihadists in the North-East had been lost while bandits in the North-West, clashes between farmers and pastoralists in the North-Central and a general insecurity prevailed over much of the rest of the country.
Nigeria’s security architecture under the supervision and direction of the Federal Government has failed disastrously, but the Buhari regime pretends to be in control while lives are daily being wasted. State governments, particularly in the North, should realise that waiting on the hollow promises of the Buhari regime is suicidal and will only spell a worse doom for their people. Therefore, they must shun playing politics with their people’s lives and come together to fashion out how to secure their lives and property.
The United States has 17,985 separate police agencies that operate at the federal, state and local levels like city police departments, county sheriff’s offices, state police/highway patrol and federal law enforcement agencies. Like the US and other federations, the structure of the federal Germany gives its 16 states the authority to maintain their own police forces.
There are 43 geographic police forces in England and Wales plus the British Transport Police, Civil Nuclear Police and the Ministry of Defence Police. Scotland has police powers except in cases that include national security and terrorism.
Nigeria does not have to copy what is being done in other countries verbatim, but it must have a structure tailored to its environment, federalism and its multi-ethnic nature. Nigerian leaders must start thinking more about what is best for the citizens and less about politics and selfish interest.
