By Ike Willie-Nwobu
SIR: Militias are rising in Nigeria, thanks to insecurity. An explosion of militias, some government-backed, and others backing themselves, are currently rocking the country.
Armed, aggressive and unaccountable, these militias are symptoms of Nigeria’s insecurity and militate against its security.
Government has failed to provide security. States, groups and individuals are compelled to fend for themselves, and compete for the increasingly scant scraps of security.
In the Southwest, there is Amotekun. Ebubeagu in the Southeast. Nigeria’s South-south has many militias competing for the country’s black gold. In the North, vigilante militias have evolved to fight or contribute to insecurity. Some of them are partners with Nigeria’s security forces in the combat against insecurity. In Nasarawa State, Miyetti Allah’s decision to front a vigilante group has worked up a cyclone. The group says it is a response to banditry which disproportionately affects its members who are cattle rearers. The move is causing apprehension. Because the group has been fingered as a key provocateur in deadly farmer-herder conflicts in the Northcentral, many feel there is more to it.
So far, Nigeria has refused to entertain the idea of state police. Security personnel are stretched across the country. Poorly equipped, poorly motivated and facing superior weapons, Nigeria has been mostly second best in the war for its survival.
The slaughter has been very great in the last decade. Borno, Zamfara, Yobe, Benue, Niger, Kaduna, Plateau, Katsina have all felt the piercing pinch of insecurity.
Cowed Nigerians who have mostly ignored calls for self-defence have been open to the idea of militias. One reason is that it is a mark of the compelling regional rivalry which marks Nigeria.
Read Also; Japa: We Issued 2.1m passports In 2023 – Immigration
The 1914 amalgamation was far from a masterstroke. The fissures prove it. The friction confirms it.
In politics, religion, economics and everywhere else, the competition is forceful.
Even when voting blocs come together to form Nigeria’s government, it is often a marriage of convenience with a lot of suspicion.
The militias operating in different parts of the country are a sign of suspicion. Suspicious of each other, Nigeria’s many parts front military groups just in case.
Like other Nigerians, Miyetti Allah fear for their lives and cattle. They have contributed a significant number of casualties to Nigeria’s cauldron of insecurity. They have also been accused of fomenting insecurity.
It should alarm government at all levels that individuals and groups are taking their security into their hands. Non-state actors arming themselves under different guises should alarm the government. In many ways, it is an admission of failure that individuals and groups are now resorting to protecting themselves. It is an indictment of the government.
Nigeria’s bloated budget provides billions for security every year. Yet, it is Nigerians armed with sticks and knives who must defend themselves from the daily assaults of ruthless terrorists.
These militias are only symptoms of the disease that insecurity has become on the body of Nigeria. It is like a cancer which is metastasizing gradually. Experience shows that it cannot be checked like half measures like arresting the brains behind the militias. Any action taken must be total.
When people do not have confidence in the ability of the state to protect them and theirs, they will look for the means with which to help themselves. For as long as people feel that the government is treating the issue of insecurity with kid gloves, they will look for means by which to hammer out fists of iron and tackle the deadly scourge.
The threat to the country’s sovereignty is clear. Armed groups, controlling vast swaths and refusing any accountability, can act with rampant impunity. And though there are no unanimous indicators of what a failed government looks like, there is a near consensus that a government that cannot guarantee the security of its citizens is a failed government.
Nigeria’s flawed federalism and bloated constitution ensure that the conversation about state police never really gains any steam. But that conversation will have to be revisited again with open minds if Nigeria is to secure itself.
