The menace of banditry is showing no sign abating in spite of rising budgetary allocations to national security in the last five years. In this concluding part of the report begun penultimate Saturday, INNOCENT DURU writes that a whopping N7.1 trillion has been allocated to security from 2016 to date, but security challenges are growing with rising allocation of funds.
- Banditry escalates as budgetary allocations for national
- security rise to N7.1bn in five years
- Jonathan administration allocated N4.6tr from 2011 to 2015
- Why security budget can’t be probed – Ex DSS chief
After years of battling with the Boko Haram menace, Nigeria’s security challenge took a turn for the worse with the emergence and spread of the deadly activities of bandits who have been unleashing unimaginable terror on innocent citizens without sparing security operatives who have been giving them a run for their money.
Niger, Nasarawa, Katsina, Kaduna and Zamfara are top of the states badly hit by the crisis.
According to Brussels-based Crisis Group, about 8,000 people have been killed since 2011 with more than 200,000 forced to flee their homes following mindless attacks by bandits.
Earlier in the year, Amnesty International (AI) declared that bandits have killed no fewer than 1,126 villagers across the country between January and June. The figure, which represents 14.075 per cent of the deaths reported by the Brussels Group, indicates that the menace had drastically increased at the end of the first half of this year and thus excludes those who have been gruesomely murdered in the last three months.
Ironically, a run through the statistics of the country’s budget shows that allocations for security have continued to rise over the years. In 2016, allocation to security gulped N1.06 trillion and moved up to N1.14 trillion in 2017. In 2018, the allocation jumped to N1.35 trillion and rose in 2019 to N 1.76 trillion. In 2020, allocation to the sector was put at N1.78trillion. Put together, the total allocation within the five years under consideration totaled N7.1 trillion.
Between 2011 and 2015, budgetary allocations to the sector by the Goodluck Jonathan administration stood at N4.62 trillion.
The allocation to security in 2011 was N920 billion and N924 billion in 2012. In 2013 and 2014, N923 billion each was allocated to security while the sum rose to N934 billion in 2015 to bring the total to N4.62 trillion.
The rising budgetary allocations has left many wondering if it has any relationship with the escalation in crime. One of them is Dr. Bala Abdullahi Husaini, a university don and security expert. According to him, the issue of banditry and other criminal matters in the sub African region are multi-dimensional.
“You cannot single out a reason as the cause. You have to look at all avenues of potential insecurity situation in your analysis,” he said.
The erudite lecturer went on to list three categories of groups that fuel such crisis and would live to see it end.
He said: “The crisis in the Northwest Nigeria can be categorised into three.
The first is the category of people we call conflict entrepreneurs. For this category of people, if conflict stops today, they will die. So, there is no way they will allow conflicts to die a natural death.
“They comprise people from government, business individuals, political party holders, traditional rulers, elite class and other categories of prominent people in every society.
“The second category is the international community. The international community relies on developing nations for their development. In essence, if developing nations are in peace, they will be in trouble, and if developing nations are in trouble, they will be peace.
“In this category we have what is called disaster capitalism. They believe that the more they sponsor criminal activities and create mayhem and civil unrest in developing countries, the more their economies will prosper.
“That is why they engage in the production of arms and ammunition. When they complete their production, the next stage is to look at potential crisis state and instigate crisis in order to sell their weapons.
The last is the miscellaneous category. It is a smaller conflict sub-organisation which believes that the only way they can address issues of their organisational interest is to hijack and create fears in the minds of the people so that they would be able to control their sector of the economy.”
Speaking on the relationship between growing budget and rising challenge of banditry, he said: “If you look at the first category I told you, the conflict entrepreneurs, I told you that they are in government and everywhere. The money budgeted for insecurity is not reaching the foot soldiers who are battling day in, day out. They money budgeted for buying weaponry, go and check, there is nothing new about it. Ask those soldiers that are in the battle field, it is not new.”
An economic expert, Dr. Austin Nweze of the Lagos Business School, blamed the failure of the budgetary allocations to achieve the desired results partly on absence of justice in the land.
He said: “No matter how much you spend, once there is no justice, fairness and equity, we will continue to have insecurity. It is not about how much you spend. When there is no justice, equality and fairness, there can never be peace. Even if you spend all the money in the world on security, it is not going to work.
“I am not even talking about the corruption that goes on in the system. I am saying that some of the signs of a failed state are insecurity, education system that is in crisis, high crime rate and high debt.
“People are using it as a conduit. What about the security votes that governors and some others have?
‘Some paramilitary officials have been accused of corruption. When there is an alarm that insurgents are here or there, the government releases more money. The more money is released, the more some people enrich themselves.
“Have you seen the video that went viral about money meant for the military being diverted? It is all corruption. By now the military should be manufacturing some of the equipment.
Niger, Katsina states decry attacks
Niger and Katsina state governments expressed sadness over the ruinous effects of banditry on their people.
The Chief Press Secretary to Niger State governor, Mary Berje, described the challenge as a sad development, adding that no government will be happy to see its citizens ceaselessly slaughtered and maimed.
He said: “It is a bitter story, you know. It is a bitter story. There is no state government that will go to sleep while its people are being slaughtered by these bandits. It is a terrible thing happening in the state.
“The government has been working assiduously to see that it brings sanity to those areas. It has also put in place security outfits to keep vigil on those places.”
The government, she added, has been supporting the security personnel to make sure they give their best in protecting the lives and property of the citizens of the state, especially those affected by the crime.
“Governor Abubarkar Sani Bello has assured that the state government is ready to go into collaborations to save the state from the hoodlums who have turned it into one of the places they carry out their criminality.
“There is no hiding place for bandits as the government is not resting on its oars. There are so many searchlights beamed on the bandits now to know their movement.
“The government has done its part, still doing its best and will continue to do more in supporting security agencies to fight the hoodlums.”
Asked her view on the relationship between the rising budget and the escalating crisis, Berje said: “You are a Nigerian and I am a Nigerian. So many things are just wrong.
“I am not a spokesperson for the defence ministry so I can’t talk about the budget. But as we all know, the government must be doing its best to get things right. It is with that intention that the budget is going up.
“If the government is doing that, we can’t say that it is wrong. But it is quite unfortunate that with all those efforts, it is appearing as if they are not making any impact.
“I am sure that the aim of the government is to get result. In some quarters, we actually get results. It is just that the results are not coming at the same time. That is why in some areas the crisis goes down and in some it goes up, depending on the disposition of these evil people.
“Some of the state governments have gone into collaborations with local vigilance groups. Here in Nigeria, the governor came up with community policing to address the problem.
“There is no government that can go to sleep… because you are there for the people. If there are no people for you to govern, then who do you govern?
No government can go to sleep when its people are being maimed and killed for no just reason.
“The Niger State Government is not sleeping over security matters and it is working to see that normalcy returns to the affected areas.”
Retired DSS chief and Special Adviser to Katsina State Government on security matters, Ahmad Ibrahim, said the state was still studying the psychology of the crime.
“When you understand the psychology of crime, you will realise that the criminals have their own pattern of operation. Security agents also have their own approach. So you have to align the two before you can unravel the psychology behind their activities. It is an unconventional warfare.
“What we are doing here is that we are trying to unravel the mystery behind the crime. So far, we are making some progress. It is reducing, unlike before.
“The ongoing military operations have greatly succeeded in reducing the potency of the criminals. By the time we sustain the ongoing military operations, we will succeed in subduing them.
“So far, we have decimated most of their capacities and we are on top of the situation. We have been having isolated attacks here and there, but it is not like before.”
On the escalation of the crime despite increasing budgetary allocations, Ahmad said: “What people should realise is that in security budget, the end justifies the means. There is no way you will say you will interrogate defence budget or security expenditure. The more you do that, the more you are unfair to the security operations.
“There are some operations that are not supposed to be publicly declared. It is not only about purchasing military hardware. There are other operations in form of psychological warfare and the rest. In the issue of security operations’ expenditure the end justifies the means.
“What we are asking members of the public to realise is that the goodwill to encourage the security forces is very useful.”
Efforts to speak with the Nigerian Army was unsuccessful as the spokesman, Col Sagir Musa, responded neither to the call nor to the text message sent to his mobile phone.
Don proffers solution
Proffering solutions to the menace, Dr Bala harped on the importance of surveillance and use of more sophisticated weapons in prosecuting the fight against bandits.
He said: “Gone are the days where you fight these conflicts with weapons that are not sophisticated. The most sophisticated ones being used by our soldiers are MG, Profiler, AK 47 and others.
“In the modern fight against insurgency anywhere in the world, you cannot fight with these.
“Another reason why this problem is unending is because our surveillance system is very poor. There is what we call in conflict parlance the triple C- Central Communication and Command. It is a joint task force that is fighting the menace, but you will see policemen not getting orders from the army and the army cannot get orders from the air force, the air force cannot get orders from the navy, neither can the civil defence get orders from the army.
“When you want to fight this issue of insurgency, there must be a central command from an officer in charge, who is committed and trusted by all forces, to receive command from him.
“It turns out that when an army man gives an order, an air force man may say no, he is talking to you and not me because I am air force. This hinders a lot of progress that these soldiers ought to have recorded.”
The next, which according to him is the most critical, is that “in this millennium, you cannot address insecurity with 100 per cent force. Some military sociologists don’t believe in that; they only advocate that there should be 80 per cent civil security relations, and that is where the issue of surveillance and synergy with the locals becomes so important.
“For you to use force, you only need to use 20 per cent. The government should have invited the community, decentralise where possible their surveillance system to include mostly locals and security experts in mufti.
“The last is the unpatriotic feelings and commitment of our soldiers, both rank and file and officers.
“These are some of the issues. Believe you me, based on analysis and experience, it is not going to end today, tomorrow, next year or next two years. It is a continuous war. The earlier the government and other parastatals address this, better for all of us.”
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