Is Abuja the seat of government and federal capital territory under terror threat? The federal government said, no. The American Embassy probably preferred not to be drawn into such argument. The embassy, based on their intelligence has since issued security alert and travel advisory to its citizens of fear of imminent attack in Abuja and commenced evacuation of staff in response to the intelligence of threat by terrorists. Other foreign embassies have followed suit following the intelligence and security alarm. The federal government is ambivalent in refutation of the claim as unnecessary panic and alarm. Even though there is palpable fear and apprehension, of course we have continued with our lives, relying on our legendary faith and divine intervention as we inundate God with supplications.
Yes, even the government tells citizens to go and pray for divine intervention instead of equipping the police and arming the security forces to confront the merchants and agents of terror in our domain.
However, one is unable to understand the fuss and hoopla over security threat in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. After all, the entire country has been under unrelenting, sustained and constant attacks and threat of attack by insurgents and bandits, Abuja inclusive. In our delirium and memory lapses, we may have forgotten that not too long ago, our dear Abuja city came under coordinated attacks at the correctional facilities in Kuje. While the nation was still reeling in that and before one could say Jack Robinson, there was a follow up at the Bwari area of the FCT when soldiers of the elite corps of the Presidential Guard were ambushed.
We may also have forgotten for reason of incipient senility of government officials about the attacks on the United Nations building on August 26, 2011, the Nigerian Police Headquarters on June 16, 2011, Nyanyan bus terminal on April 14, 2014, all in the FCT. Recall also the tragedy of December 25, 2011 Christmas day bombing of St Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla in Niger State which is within the periphery of the FCT. Where you have efficient and working intelligence, the Abuja-Kaduna train attack and harvest of hostages with attendant trauma could have been averted. Why are we so dazed with memory failures that we cannot recall these incidents that the wounds are still with us? Is it a misplaced pride of sovereign pride or arrogance or just to rise in defence of incompetent political elite who themselves appear complicit?
The government may have put up some efforts half-heartedly to deal with insecurity in the country though which is certainly not enough in the circumstances. The federal government may well be correct that the security alert and advisory or alarm is needless after all the issue of insecurity is constant across the six geo-political zones without any exception. The other reason may be our attitude to the safety of lives and properties of citizens which to our leaders matter very little. We see the daily butchery of people and gore sights displayed on social media and our elites are too engrossed in politics to be concerned with such distractions, which is what it is to them.
The government whining and bickering over the attitude of the western countries and especially the American embassy advisory might be a protest that instead of issuing security alert and advisory and evacuation orders, they should have engaged the government in diplomatic niceties to minimize damage of public response and fear to such threat. This again is a matter of diplomatic discretion and preferences and not a duty after all the advisory was to their own citizens living in the federal capital territory. It was up to us or any other person who is concerned about his or her own personal safety to take advantage of such generosity and openness of the American government.
Furthermore, giving intelligence information to a foreign government whether it is your host country or not bothers on trust and the ability of that government to manage such intelligence and react robustly to it. We have a political elite and government that lives in perpetual denial, misleading the public on crucial issues of state especially on security and the economy. Whether we choose to continue to live in denial or not, available information has revealed that some terrorists’ commanders and their foot soldiers have been arrested within the FCT. Our government has never given us cause to take its words of honour to the bank and returned cashed. We may be driven by the fire of patriotism to take side with our government as a sovereign nation but we also must not lose sight of the fact that we have virtually left our ability to deal with insecurity to the support and assistance from the western intelligence and their logistics.
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Informing us of security and intelligence gathering available to them in our territory is a discretionary matter which they are bound to exercise in their whims and intuition. We should therefore stop advertising and dramatizing our inadequacies and failures to the world. We may not have been able to develop our military industrial complex that is, if we ever have a blueprint for developing one in future. For us, it is only when news items or intelligence comes from America and Europe that we believe the substance of it.
Not too long ago, a certain minister of the federal republic who has since voted with her legs and cooling off in Europe was fingered to have embezzled the sum of about $20 million. The response of our own dear president then was that if such amount of money was stolen or removed from the economy, America would know. I ask myself, as our spy agent or police for the federal republic?
The web of insecurity around the country has overwhelmed our security forces. The military has virtually taken over police duties in aid to civil authority in addition to her traditional roles. This is because the police has become completely disoriented and lack the capacity to police the country. We cannot assert our sovereignty by lying to ourselves and giving false sense of security to our people and expose them to danger on own internal domestic affairs. You cannot be depending on someone and at the same time be seen to be picking up a fight that you will never win against him. Our security forces should up their game and undergo a thorough process of transformation to deal with contemporary security challenges affecting our country.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Nigeria had one of the most dynamic intelligence agencies amongst developing countries, the Nigeria Security Organization (NSO). For all its faults, foibles and failings, it was an effective security organization that would have competed favourably with any intelligence organization in the world if we had allowed it to evolve and then refine its operational methodology seen then as brutal and oppressive. It was almost as effective and faceless as in the class of Israeli’s Mossad or the Russia’s KGB. Not what we have today where intelligence operatives would display regalia of combat chasing political opponents and activists of dissenting views and opinions. The NSO was killed by the government of Ibrahim Babangida the self-style president for the reason of security tenure and his gambit for transmutation to life president.
Our country is unsafe today because we have ruling elite who do not care a-hoot about the health of the state and citizens. We have a political class driven by narrow sectarian interests of ethno-religious dominion. The state of fear of insecurity and threat of attack is not peculiar to Abuja but the entire country. We have a police force that is grossly under-funded and undisciplined that sometimes you feel safer to embrace the threat of criminals by paying royalty to gang leaders than seek help from the police which translate to the same thing of paying ransom anyway. I am not an alarmist but from experience at this time of the year, there will certain be rise in insecurity and spate of attacks by criminals. This is made worse by reason of political activities geared towards 2023 elections which are also fought like combat; resulting to political killings, abductions for ransom and outright banditry. Lets tell ourselves the truth: the threat is real.
- Kebonkwu Esq is an Abuja-based attorney.