Many people are falling ill nowadays, and doctors cannot tell them why. Such conditions are psychosomatic or psychological. Psychosomatic illnesses present symptoms in different parts of the body without medical explanation. Such symptoms may include headache and migraines, fatigue, hypertension, indigestion, shortness of breath, impotence, insomnia etc. Doctors describe the cause(s) of such condition(s) as idiopathic…of no known cause!
This season is a season of troubling, high impact and fast moving events which are heavily impacting on our minds and causing brutal psychic injuries. Three-year-old babies are raped. Fathers are forcing their under age daughters. One mother of six went to cut plantain planted by another woman. When the owner complained, the thief cut her to pieces. A woman boarded her two school-age children in a tricycle taxi for a school run, bade them bye but never saw them again. A man went to the home of his elder brother when he was out, and invited his nephew and niece to accompany him somewhere. The children never returned home, as they becamevictims of ritual killings. Nine policemen were killed in a forest better known inside out by kidnappers they went to arrest. In the Niger Delta, two Army Majors, a Commanding Officer and 13 other soldiers have just been killed by armed young men in a village traumatised by communal violence and murders. Several residents have fled into the unknown for fear of military reprisals.
They are too many of such strange events I cannot mention here. However, the following two are worth mentioning because they have not stopped to cause me sleepless night.
In the first events, a woman took her three children to the Central Police Station in Enugu, came outside the gate,stripped herself and forcefully ran straight into an oncoming vehicle. She died immediately. The oldest of the three children was about six. I have not stopped to wonder how I would be feeling even today if my mother did that to me about 74 years ago. Even today,do I not remember that she bled to death 65 years ago at 31 from retained placenta while having her fifth baby? Do I still not wish she was medically helped? Did her experience not make me always insist on being in the labour room with my wife? Every time I remember these orphaned children, I grieve, wondering how mentally stable they will be,growing up and recalling their mother last moment.
Almost every night nowadays, I tend to spend sleep hours imagining the fate of 287 school boys and girls kidnapped at school and taken into the wild. I do not forget to think also and to pray for women who were taken away in similar circumstances from refugee camps and nearby village after their homes were burned.
My nightmares began with the kidnap on April 14-15, 2014 of 276 mainly Christian School girls aged between 16 and The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) under President Olusegun Obasanjo opposed and killed all efforts for alternative police forces. The PDP administration of President Ebele Goodluck Jonathan acted likewise, growing insecurity tension. Although the opposition since the days of Obasanjo Presidency had been calling for state government police forces, the All Progressives Congress (APC) government of Muhammadu Buhari failed in eight years to actualise this dream despite a worsening of the security platforms under him 18 in Chibok, Borno State 10 years ago. These were girls who may have become medical doctors or engineers. Men who as boys dropped out of school or never went to school dared to lay hands on them and even sexually defiled them to drive home to us their philosophy of Boko Haram…education is scam. I said then we would soon forget about those girls, and I have been proven right. The story of the boy who escaped from the kidnappers is an assault on our personal and national psychic. Imagine you being at school or in a refugee camp that is suddenly surrounded by about 100 men who are shooting anyhow and asking all of you to fellow them into a forest. The kidnappers marched them on foot through forest pathways for some days. Whenever the girls were tired, they were placed on motor-cycles. There was no food to eat and no water to drink. For their survival,the kidnappers picked and chewed certain leaves. This is of interest to me, as a naturalist and herbal medicine advocate. These thoughts soon erase themselves from my mind, however, when I remember another tale from the escapee. Whenever an airplane, or maybe a drone, flew by, the captives were commanded to pull their dresses,and lie on them. This ensured a perfect blending of human complexion with the forest soil, and deceive the airmen. Luckily for our story teller, they all arrived at a swamp, the colour of which blended with his clothes. So, he decided to take a risk and hide in the environment. I guess only persons who have implantations of manly courage and heroism can do this. He waited for the captives and captors to be gone for some hours before he came out of hiding and into freedom by returning home in the direction opposite to that they came from. I guess many , if not all,of those girls and women in captivity would have been severally defiled by now, made to believe they have no country, despair of themselves and probably wonder if goodness triumphs over evil. This is a subject for another day.
Insecurity
The subject of today is the collapse of security for life and property in Nigeria. The collapse was possible because the security architecture is not founded on the Laws of Nature. Anything done outside these laws in unnatural, and anything unnatural is false, unknown to nature and will inevitably collapse, be it friendship, the economy or marriage. About 30 years ago, I gave a public lecture to young men and women who were interested in becoming students of mother nature. It was titled “Go to the ants, o man, and be wise”. It was about how Nigeria may be structured and governed using principles of the laws of nature. These laws sorted mankind into tribes as its also sorted the human body into “tribes” of tissues, organs and systems. Man cannot be superior to the Creator of a universe in which he is only a creature and guest. In the design of the human body, Mother Nature give us ideas of how to design security of life and property in human society.
I strive to be natural in all things. Being natural does not means surrendering to the unnatural principle of “letting yourself go” which many people assume to be naturalness. Being natural means doing things the way nature does them and would like us to, also, do them. This is why, in a Federal and plural society such as Nigeria, I support Federal Government and State Government policing. When a floating, peppering substance in the air enters the eye, or a mosquito flies into a nostril, the eye and the nostril immediately flights back before the central immune system comes to their rescue.
Policing is a natural phenomenum in the human body which mankind copy for the well-being of their societies. Therefore, the more of a successful copy cat we can be, the safer our societies will be.
Where in the animal kingdom do we not encounter policing against misdemeanour within the species and defence against predators? The honey bees coat the inside of their colonies with a high grade, broad spectrum anti-microbials substance called BEE PROPOLIS to prevent infections. I guess the soldiers bees are giving bee pollen, and energizing products of the worker bees. The human body is a classical example of policing. In adult body, there are about 100 trillion cells, each of which has its own defence system, irrespective of a central defence mechanism. Even within the individual cell, small semi-independent sections such as the mitochrondrium, where energy is produced, start to defend itself against any problem before its seeks external aid should that be necessary. The individual cell belongs to a group of specialised cells called the tissue which, again, has a sectional defence protocol. This principle is not abandoned when tissues join hands to form organs and organs team up to form a system. In high school biology, we learned of several of them..nervous system, visual system, auditory system, digestive system, excretory system, Urogenital system, immune system, reproductive system, skeletal system and, a few years ago, the endocannabidiol system was added to the list. This is reputed to be the master system which not only ensures that no system is under working or over performing but, also, supports their immunity and defence mechanism and requirements.
I would like to say a word or two about The Human Immune System and of the lessons it may reach designers of Nigeria’s policing architecture.
The immune system is not only about “soldier” in the body which moves about freely such as Basophils,Messophils, monocytes, Neutrophils, lymphocytes(T cell, B cell, and natural killer (Nk)cells)and macrohages. For want of space, elaboration is not possible here. Suffix it to say, however, that basophils orginate in the bone marrow and travel to damaged areas of the body for repair work, widening passages, preventing blood clotting and killing germs and parasites. Their population is governed largely by the spleen, liver and kidneys. Nk cells act like the military police of the immune system. Macrohages encircle and swallow foreign agents. Each cell type performs a different immune function. The mobile immune cell population numbers about 1.8 trillion cells in an average adult body cell population of about 100 trillion. This is a lesson for Ngeria’s policing architecture of 400,000 policemen to about 250 million citizens or one police man to about 625 Nigerians, whereas the immune system provides one “policeman” to defend about 50 cells and can rapidly produce more in emergencies.
The immune system also comprises immobile cells and organs such as adenoids, tonsils, glands such as the thymus,and tissues which produce immune factors called immunoglobuline. We probably have heard of immunoglobulin A ( IgA) produce in mucus membrane or hallow tubes throughout the body to protect them. IgA, first line of immonulogbuline is present in the eye, respiratory track, breast milk, saliva, and the digestive track etc. Also crucial for immobile immune defence are the Lymph Nodes in various parts of the body such as the armpits, neck and the groin. The minutest part of the body, the Organelle has its own defences which are supported should there be need by larger forces from other parts. Some forces ignite inflammation so that immune “soldiers” have bigger spaces to maneuver during a “battle”. Inflammation is shut down when the “battle” is over, and repair proteins have done their healing jobs. In short, for the human society to experience peace and stability, it must borrow a leaf from the defence mechanisms mother Nature has given the human body as the most developed anatomy and physiology in the animal kingdom. Law markers who are gearing arguments for and against state police may invite medical doctors to address them on the human body’s immune system to enrich their decision.
February 16, 2024
This date should be seen as unique in Nigerian security history. The 36 governors and the Federal Capital Territory Ministers and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu agreed that Nigeria needed state government Police forces. Nigeria had local government police forces in the 1963 Constitution. The Aguiyi- Ironsi Federal Military Government of 1966 made Nigeria in unitarised Federation and abolished the local government police to give unitary federalists like himself the monopoly of policing power and military power.This contradicts the plan of nature which sorted human beings in this geographic entity into homogeneous tribes which were to grow and mature at confidence spaces, not at a uniform rate. Successive Nigerian Presidents have retained this profile, even when it was becoming increasingly clear that one Inspector-General of Polce could not effectively police a population which had grown from about 55 million in 1963 to about 250 million today.
I saw February 16, 2024 as a turning point because, on that day, there was no dissenting voice nation-wide, at least among the governors, and the turn-around is taking place only within eight months of the Tinubu Administration.
How well, how soon?
How soon shall we have the constitution amended to give us police forces in the states, and how well will the fears of old about them be addressed? It would appear that time is running out fast if we do not act quickly. Our forests have been occupied by foreigners. We are also probably outnumbered in our cities and villages. What may worsen these scenarios is the combination, under military governments,of Mali, Burkina Fasso and Niger Republic to minimise French influence in their economies and invite Russia to militarily assist them.Refugees from these countries may swell the population of unfriendly foreigners. So, how soon and how well will President Bola Ahmed Tinubu deliver brand new 37 police forces in the states and enlarged present Federal policing to cover the forests and highways?
Suggestions
• The states may claim lack of money for the project. Federal revenue should be enlarged through, for example,stoppage of crude oil thefts and the income spread across relevant overheads including one standard Police Training College in every state. The Police College Ikeja, ( PCI) originally called Southern Polce College (SPC) should be their role model. I lived there from 1958 to 1961 with my parents and again from 1968 to about 1971. It was then on the outskirts of Lagos. By 1968, the only public transportation from Mobile Petrol Station in Maryland to Ikeja Round-about(LASUTH under bridge)were two private cars which ran “Kabukabu” ( unofficial)service. The states should provide land in the outskirts.
• By now, the Federal Attorney-General and Justice Minister should have received inputs from states attorney-generals and Justice commissioners, professional groups, concerned citizens etc and reconciled them for a Bill from the Office of The President. The Bill should be discretely circulated to the various interest groups such as the Governors, State Houses of Assembly, the Senate and the House of Representatives, Inspector-General of Police, Police Service Commision and the Police colleges.
• Upon further inputs, corrections,additions and deletions, the Bill should proceed to the National Assembly and be rewarded with speedy hearings given the wide-range consultations. From here, it should go to the state Houses of Assembly and the FCT where, hopefully, there should be no obstruction.
• The time frame should not be over three months to prevent a coup or unnecessary regional horse trading against the plan.
• The constitution should not create police forces for the states. It Should acknowledge their rights to set up their police forces. Doing otherwise is saying the states own their existence to the Federal Government or to Nigeria, whereas it is the Federal Government and Nigeria which own their existence to the states, according to Ngeria’s history and logic of nature. Similarly, Nigeria should not create local government for the states. The federating units are the states.
• There is no money too big to spend on national security. So, the Federal Government will have to support the states at the infancy of this project.Lagos State population must be about nine times that of Israel. Can Lagos not fund its own police force? Ditto Akwa Ibom, Kano, Kaduna and Oyo, among others. The Federal Government may pay the salaries of 1,000 Policemen in every state for the first year while the states each match this with another 1,000 men to give us 2,000 Policemen per state. If each of about 10 million persons in Lagos State pays N200 security levy every months for the take-off of this project, the state government should realise N24,000,000,000 if public and private institutions support the project, the Fund should be alot bigger.
One of the private sector organisations is the Lagos Abbatior.
About 100,000 cows are said to be slaughtered in Lagos every day. A N200 security levy per cow should provide N20 million every day or N600 million every month or N72,000,000,000 in one year. What will the Churches, Mosques and markets bring to the table for Lagos State Police(LASPOL)?
In my days in secondary school, did we children from our meagre pocket-money not support the victims of apartheid in South Africa? Any effort to support elimination of blood shedding in our country should be supported by us all. The churches and the Mosques should make generous donations. Christians should remember Revelation Chapter 12 which reports casting of the dragon out of heaven. We should not forget how the immune system of the human body protects it from danger.. God speaks to us through Nature. We can hear Him Speak to us always in the ways our body works because every activity of our bodies bears testimony of His WILL.
In respect of Insecurity in Nigeria, we all pulled the President by the shirt collar or literally threw sachet water or eggs at him. He has responded to our calls. We should give him all the backing he requires. I am happy that states which strenuously opposed state government police under Obasanjo, Jonathan and Buhari have seen the need for it, being among the most insecure state today. In this rare national harmony, we should quickly do the needful lest Lucifer break our ranks again. The President should woo the states with money. It is recoverable. Security will improve agriculture, there will be more food on the table, we would not need to open the border for foreign foods which will further weaken the Naira. There will be more gains.
