- Never again should it be toyed with
With the Boko Haram insurgents ravaging the north-east, kidnappers in the south-east and south-south and armed robberies and ritual killings here and there, President Muhammadu Buhari took over the country’s affairs at very difficult times. There was virtual state of insecurity in the land.
So, we expect the Buhari administration to take the issue of security seriously. Provision of adequate security is the raison d’etre of any government properly so-called. Where insecurity reigns, neither the government nor the governed can be at peace. Of course, insecurity is also a serious disincentive to foreign investment. Although some people believe that Nigeria has a huge, irresistible market for foreign investors, the fact also is that investors begin to rethink their business decisions concerning unsafe business environments.
Our situation is more precarious when we realise that we have a harsh and un-conducive business environment that makes our products uncompetitive. We can only imagine the result when this is compounded by insecurity. We saw the effect of mere expectation that the last General Elections would make the country erupt on our stock market last year.
However, the government appears to have started well, at least given the streaks of successes the armed forces have recorded against the Boko Haram insurgents. The change of baton at the federal level after last year’s elections has rekindled hope in the country’s foreign friends (that stayed aloof during the Jonathan years rather than help us fight Boko Haram) that Nigeria is now sincerely ready to confront its security challenges, particularly as it pertains to Boko Haram. We must not give them any reason to doubt that sincerity.
The government must restructure the military and other arms of the security agencies for more efficiency. Almost all of them were compromised and or neglected in the immediate past, with soldiers participating actively in electoral irregularities; policemen too became largely politicised, not to mention the Department of State Security (DSS) which became an extension of the megaphone of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Not only these, there was massive corruption in the procurement of arms for the security agencies, given the little that we know from the $2.1billion arms fund scandal.
Investigations into the $2.1billion arms funds must continue and the culprits prosecuted. We need to make a statement that never again would the country tolerate a situation where people would feel comfortable sharing public funds.
Even within the government’s lean resources, it must make reasonable provision for the security agencies. Never again must we hear of 50 police trainees sharing one fish head! If we violate our trainee police officers we should not be surprised if they turn out to be hungry lions after graduation, looking for hapless citizens to devour. Since it is now obvious that the Federal Government cannot handle the security question alone, other arms of government should also take more than a passing interest in security matters. Individual Nigerians must also be involved because those who breach security and other criminals live among us.
More state governments should take a cue from Lagos State which has invested and keeps investing heavily in security. For example, the present administration in the state which is barely seven months has spent a whopping N4.8billion to equip the police and other security agencies to complement the efforts of the Federal Government.
We must however warn that adequate security is not necessarily a function of the huge amount allocated to it, but how judiciously it is spent. Whatever is voted for security must be spent strictly on security; it must be spent to procure arms and ammunition, provide logistics for the security agencies as well as train and motivate them for maximum efficiency.
“We will invest to safeguard lives and property”, President Buhari assured while presenting his budget to the joint session of the National Assembly adding that “we will devote a significant portion of our recurrent expenditure to institutions that provide critical government services. We will spend N369.6 billion in Education; N294.5 billion in Defence; N221.7 billion in Health and N145.3 billion in the Ministry of Interior. This will ensure our teachers, armed forces personnel; doctors, nurses, police men, fire fighters, prison service officers and many more critical service providers are paid competitively and on time”. So help him God.
