Government’s paralysis in the face of relentless terrorist attacks and the ease with which gunmen violate the nation’s capital are no longer laughing matters
A smell fear in high places. In the aftermath of the deadly attack on a church at the Command and Staff College, Jaji last Sunday, and an invasion by gunmen next day of the Abuja headquarters of the Special Anti- Robbery Squad (SARS), legislators at the National Assembly have been debating Nigeria’s security crisis.
In the course of the animated discussions, a member, Raphael Nnanna, fretting about the ability of relevant agencies to solve the problem, warned that if gunmen could operate on the premises of security agents and stroll away leisurely, they could also invade the National Assembly. “I see these people coming to the National Assembly very soon,” he prophesied.
Nnanna’s comment, and the tangible sense of trepidation that pervaded the debate last week is evidence that in today’s Nigeria there’s no safe place. Neither high walls nor the length of your convoy is guarantee of safety for the high and mighty.
The recent attacks equally focus our minds on the fact that very little can be done to stop a mad man or woman bent on mass murder.
Assassins and terrorists may not have the ability to hold territory, but they possess the means to make nonsense of our conventional security arrangements. The element of surprise is often always in their favour. They can even insinuate themselves into the security apparatus that leaders surround themselves with.
The late Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was killed by the Sikh bodyguards in her entourage. Former Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, met a bloody end on a parade ground in Cairo when a soldier broke away and turned his firearm on his leader.
We may not be able to catch every killer on a mission to wreak havoc, but nations have managed to put in place systems that reduce these incidents of terror and other strains of violent crime to manageable levels. Nigeria cannot be an exception.
The worry for us is that we’re no longer talking about isolated cases in deserted outposts. We are dealing with a situation where terrorists are perpetrating their evil in places we would ordinarily consider to be safe havens or fortresses.
Imagine this shortlist of high profile locations attacked over the last 18 months. The Command and Staff College, Jaji, Special Anti- Robbery Squad (SARS) headquarters, Abuja, Louis Edet House – headquarters of the Nigeria Police and seat of the Inspector-General of Police, Eagle Square, Abuja, ‘Mammy Market’ at the Nigerian Army’s Mogadishu Cantonment, Abuja to mention a few.
What is significant about this list is that it contains locations that can be classified as high security facilities. If those to secure them cannot defend these establishments from being violated, how do we put our faith in the promises of our president that they will defend us in our locations with lower security prioritisation?
Earlier this year, Boko Haram in one of their statements warned that they would be attacking public buildings. Of course, invading police stations all over the North East is their favourite pastime. It is therefore amazing that despite these repeated invasions security agencies did not sense that any of their facilities could be attacked at any moment and fortified them.
The Police statement after the SARS Abuja attack spoke proudly of how they responded to the assault. But then, security must have been considerably lax for the gunmen to have operated for as long as they did in the very heart of the facility – so much so that they had enough time to free 30 high profile suspects.
The mirth-inducing statement then informs us with fanfare that the Inspector-General of Police, M.D. Abubakar, has ordered security to be beefed up across the country. Really! Does it require a special edict for protection to be provided at police stations and other facilities holding high profile criminal suspects?
I am not an expert: but if the so-called security gurus are falling down on the job, laymen like us can sneak into the cracks and venture an opinion.
If we are to make any significant progress in addressing the current problem of insecurity, there has to be an urgent mindset reset in government circles. Dialogue could be a cheap and reasonable way out if there is evidence that a serious interlocutor exists across the divide.
So far no such evidence has been provided. The so-called offer of dialogue supposedly made by the sect has since turned out to be a hoax. The signal which people who want to talk send out is reduction of attacks not ratcheting them up.
Even worse, the supposed peacemakers have refused to name those who will be doing the talking on their side. The whole thing looks like a red herring floated to give the beleaguered group time to regroup and gain second wind. Typically, a government that’s in a hurry to please swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
We have to admit that we’re in a war. It is a shooting, bombing war in which people are being killed and property destroyed. It may not be conventional warfare but it produces the same deadly result.
To prevail in any war against a dangerous and unpredictable foe, you must fight to win – no pussyfooting, no half-measures. Ever since the Gulf War the US has been executing a military doctrine emphasising use of overwhelming force in all theatres of war it has ventured into.
For too long government strategy appears to have been driven by the wooly thinking that we shouldn’t wage war against our own citizens. Well, reality check! All that such naïve thinking has produced in the last few years are thousands of dead bodies murdered by fellow ‘citizens’.
It was this sort of wishy-washy approach that led President Goodluck Jonathan to impose a so-called ‘state of emergency’ on 16 local government areas in January. After six months of ineffectiveness he quietly let the measure lapse.
But the failure of emergency rule in the areas concerned was entirely the fault of the government. For the measure to have worked it should have been more comprehensive. There should have been more boots on the ground.
The declaration should also have covered entire states – not piecemeal local councils. The upshot would have been the creation of a security quarantine that isolates the terrorists in one corner of the country and allows the military to pressure and hunt them down with minimum restraint.
As it turned out, Jonathan’s half-hearted emergency simply allowed the killers to evade capture by moving from the designated councils to unaffected ones in the same state.
Emergency rule done properly is inconvenient, impinges on liberties and will draw howls of protest. But we have to decide whether we want to save lives or play nice.
The government is nowhere near winning the shooting war, and it’s slowly losing the psychological war. It must quickly regain the initiative. Boko Haram have shown that not only have they the capability to strike at will, they can do so at the heart of the nation’s military cum political establishment. This they have conveyed to a watching nation through brutal action, not spin. To combat this impression, government has to show that it can create safe areas that are free from terrorist infestation.
Of particular importance is the nation’s capital. Attacks such as the one on the SARS headquarters are beyond embarrassing: they project a picture of chaos and incompetence. Even if government cannot protect any other place, Abuja ought to be our fortress. A government that cannot secure its seat cannot claim to be in control.
