Ibrahim Ahmed Katsina was a Director with the Department of State Security (DSS). He was a Special Adviser on Security to the former governor of Katsina State, Aminu Bello Masari. He participated in several high-profile security operations, such as the rescue of about 300 students of the Government Science Secondary School Kankara in Katsina State, among others.
He is currently the Director, Monitoring and Evaluation at the prestigious National Institute for Security Studies, Abuja. In this interview, he says the recent suicide bombing in Borno where over 30 lives were lost should be a wakeup call to the Nigerian government on the need to not only rejig its justice system which he calls archaic but also tap into religion which the perpetrators used in recruiting members with a view of reorientating the general public. Excerpts
Many thought the last had been heard of the Boko Haram atrocities until they struck recently again in Borno with over 30 deaths and several injured.
Those are the dynamics of crime, signifying that there are no straight-jacketed solutions to security challenges. Criminal elements and terrorists seek the best opportunity to strike. That incident was an isolated case that needed to be studied and made a case study of it, as to what the factors are responsible. What made the criminal elements find the opportunity to strike with that devastating effect?
As far as I am concerned, that incident should be viewed based on the emerging facts that would come out of the investigation. As stated earlier, it was an isolated case that could happen anywhere. Even in advanced climes, we experience such. In America, the United Kingdom, and all other advanced countries, they all face this type of challenge because they just spring up. Criminal elements, especially the terrorists, spring up when you least expect them. When you are relaxed, thinking it is over, but it is not over for them.
After the investigations, that may be where it ends …
The criminal justice system in the country is weak. It really needs to be reviewed. You cannot inherit something from the colonial era and still apply it to this modern era. What should be done is simple. Reduce the time frame between the investigation and prosecution process. Most of the police or security agencies, including the DSS and the judiciary officers, don’t have the experience to understudy or undercover the current dynamics of security challenges we are facing.
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I think the security forces and the judicial officers need to have a round table to review the judicial process because when you prosecute someone for committing a crime and then take up to ten years before he is punished, may be because of adjournments and other factors. There should be special courts that can assist the security forces when they finish their investigation so that within three months, they are done with their investigation. That is what is happening in other countries. But in Nigeria, somebody who committed a crime in the last 10 years is still being persecuted today, such that most people would have even forgotten about the crime. Apart from parading the suspects before the camera, that may be the end because we don’t have a structured arrangement that can review the process, there is no monitor and evaluation mechanism, checks and balances, the judicial process is archaic, it needs review. You can not expect somebody to be prosecuted for a crime today, and the next date would be the next 10 years. By that time, the person may have transformed into something else. The essence of punishment should be reformative, not punitive. When you punish the perpetrators, it should serve as a deterrent to others, but if you keep the culprit in the cooler(detention) eating government food and other things like that, nobody will know he has even committed any crime because people will forget and I think that is our present situation. The judicial process needs review because the police are doing their best. When the police arrest people, they investigate them, and they take them to court, but when you get a lawyer, the lawyer begins to seek adjustment here and there. So, we need a complete overhaul of our justice system.
How true that the insurgency would have been won but for people, including the military personnel benefitting from the war.
How?
From budget to prosecute the war(military equipment)
I think that is a sweeping statement. Let us talk with facts. Globally, military contracts are expensive. Defence budget is on the high side. In Nigeria, because of the general attitude of the people, they perceive everybody to be the same. Let us be fair to the security forces. What we need is accountability in the process. Everybody is a culprit in the system because the recruitment process is faulty, the budget price is faulty, the implementation process is faulty, and that is where you find the lacuna. I guess your accusation is coming up now of the heat we are facing in terms of banditry, terrorism, and separatist agitations. Do you now expect the security forces to do magic? No. It does not work that way. What we need is a deliberate national strategy policy on combating terrorism, banditry, and other associated crimes.
Take, for example, in the Unites States of America, when the 911 incident happened, what did they do? They reviewed the entire security architecture which gave birth to homeland security with specific tasks, get officers that would be trained on insurgency, terrorism, counter-terrorism but in Nigeria, the average policeman, military man, and average DSS man is still operating with archaic laws that have no place for the emerging trend of crime and criminality. Let us tell ourselves the truth, we need to sit up and review the national laws, policies, and programmes of security management. We always want quick fixes in situations like this, but we don’t want to sit down and find out solutions to the problems. As long as you don’t sit down and review what is wrong, you cannot do what is right. The laws need to be reviewed. The processes must be reviewed. Ordinarily, any instance of banditry or terrorism should not pass one year in the trial and prosecution, but here in Nigeria, somebody will commit a crime and his case will be lingering in court to the extent that his files would be missing. By that, no example would serve as a deterrent, and that is why people are getting encouraged to go into crime because there is no example of punishment that would serve as a deterrent to others.
Could that be one of the reasons why every part of the country is having one form of violence and another?
Globally, there is nowhere that is safe. It is part of human nature, and problems are meant to be solved. The issue of this type of criminality we are facing is one of the issues that shows we need to sit down and review the attitude of the average person. Somebody born in the ’60s cannot be compared with the thinking and IQ of somebody born in the ’90s because of the trends globally now. We are now talking about AI. So, if you assume the thinking of an average person would be like that of the colonial period, you are just wasting your time. Let the political leadership and everyone get together and discuss solutions. Meanwhile, every crime has local content. If the community absolves you, the crime will thrive. If the community rejects you, it will not. When the banditry or terrorism started in the North East, the people became docile and unconcerned, and that was what encouraged Yusuf. The law enforcement agents will be pursuing the criminals, and the community will be shielding them. The same thing in the North West. It’s the same thing in the South-East. I think people should emulate the South West when the separatist agitation was on, the people isolated the criminal elements including their families, and that was what assisted the security forces to identify them and nip the problem in the bud. Did you hear anybody from the South West trying to molest them? Because the people have set an example. That is the effective aspect of community policing. Let the community rise to the challenge. That is what is happening globally. Community policing is the way to go. That is why the British, American, and all other advanced countries excel. Everybody knows each other in the community. Had it been the North West and South East tried what South West did, all these crimes would not have been this big because the people perpetrating these crimes are known to the people in the community. That is why I said every crime has local content. The psychology of crime will continue unless we can tell ourselves the truth and act on it because an average criminal studies the pattern of the response of the people before he strikes. The moment they know that their society will not accommodate their acts, they will change location. It is the tracking system that should be reviewed instead of putting pressure on the security forces. No, it is society first that should take advantage of these things. You want peace or trouble. If you want peace, don’t allow criminals to thrive in your community. If you cooperate with the criminal to deal with me, tomorrow somebody will cooperate with the same criminal to deal with you. Let everybody answer the clarion call. Crime and criminality do nobody any good. Whatever incentive crime would give, it is short-lived but with the long-term effect of the negative consequences that will live with you for the rest of your life. We allow crimes and criminality to take over our rational thinking such that we justify our involvement in crimes. There is no amount of incentive that should encourage anybody to go into crime.
Every crime and situation has factors responsible. When I was in the United States Institute of Peace and we were discussing the emergence of Boko Haram, what led these young people to think of venturing into terrorism was because of religion. We know that an average person in the North uses religion to transmit political ideology and social economics aspects. So, religion is a tool form of mobilisation. It is something the youth realised that the elite are using to manipulate the psyche of the people, and that’s what made the youths also mobilize followers using the same tool. They use it for religious purposes, but under it, there is a motive. It is not religion.
So, the government must know the psychology of the crime. Also, they must find out what is making the recruitment process easier. Once you get that, you suffocate it. That is why I said our security forces should sit down, be calm, and have no sentiment. You don’t respond based on sentiment or emotion. You will get it wrong totally. Respond based on facts and reality, you will get it right.
Those involved in curtailing these crimes should go to the root of the problem and make the solution a bottom approach format rather than top to bottom-.. Let the government evolve a deliberate policy to study what are the factors that are making religion a veritable tool for destruction instead of development. It should be used as a unifying factor.