INSECURITY is a booming economy that is mixed with politics on purpose. The notion that politics drives insecurity may click if we look at politics as policies.
What sustains insecurity is the far reaches of its causes and courses. The consequences reach deep parts that are more enriching to criminals than mere politics.
A new economy is booming around insecurity. The beneficiaries are in a long chain that creates value for those who have cued into the gold mine.
Insecurity transfers the powers of the state to invisible actors who are accountable only to themselves. Sometimes they may seem to work against each other but their efforts are complementary whether on the government’s side or outlaws who have discovered they could apply their skills to manipulate a fragile system that boasts of its emptiness.
Fear is their first armour on all sides. The social media helps in spreading stories of how powerful new groups have become. The security agencies re-echo the messages, making a case for more funding for equipment. It is a security matter so we never know if new equipment are purchased and if purchased if they are used.
The current approach feeds the diseases around insecurity. We treat the diseases instead of curing them, or even applying preventive measures. As more people join the insecurity economy, costs of taking them keep rising – those costs benefit some people.
Would one say our security agencies do not know these issues? They do. There have been hints at sabotage, sectional sentiments, indifference, as reasons for the bloom in insecurity. Unemployment is an often under-stated cause of crimes. Our crimes have matured to types that are alien to our security agencies.
The key actors in our insecurity architecture are government security agencies, militants, separatists, common crimes like armed robbers, kidnappers, herdsmen, arsonists, rapists, killers.
They form the mass of the insecurity miasma with expertise in their different spheres. They make up for any gaps in skills with a horde of information technology specialists, bankers, informants, sponsors, all of them feed off the proceeds of these crimes.
Nigeria’s thousands of unemployed graduates are at their service nationwide. They harvest their skills into the crime economy.
Read also: Bad economy, poverty aiding secessionist agitations, insecurity &; Ananaba
Insecurity is a big issue. To move those armoured tankers, troops, ensure their logistics, supplies, and welfare cost money. Aircrafts sent for aerial missions cost money.
Who feeds the troops at check points? Who constructs the improvised accommodation for them in unexpected places? Provisions for monitoring them right to headquarters requires funding. The same goes for all arms of the security agencies that are enthusiastic in joining in Nigeria’s biggest security operations in peace time.
No State is considered peaceful enough to be spared the armada of security presence from check points to the bushes, streets, and anywhere they think threats exist.
Why are successes low in stopping the menace of insecurity with the huge budgets that governments at every level, and individuals deploy to it? We often miss the depth of the challenges insecurity pose as we treat the issues on the surface. More importantly, there appears to be no serious intentions to tackle those who fund insecurity, sponsor it for profit as a business, and protect the foot soldiers.
Sabotage of security operations are treated with levity. Who is passing intelligence to insurgents? How do bandits and other criminals get arms? Why do we still have many ungoverned spaces across Nigeria?
Now that insecurity is in boom, it would be more difficult to stop. Insecurity would be reduced to the barest minimum when government makes crimes unprofitable by punishing their perpetrators, not minding who they are.
FINALLY…
WE are in the worst time to be a young person in Nigeria. Once you bear any of the items that support modern living – phone, iPad, laptop, drive a car, have an unapproved hairstyle – you are a criminal. The security agencies think it is their patriotic duty to strip you of your belongings, pull out any money in your bank account, and kill you, if they are so moved. There are so many such heart-rending cases reported daily. The security agents hardly suffer any consequences.
NIGERIA was united in more sorrow in the past week over lives lost in the high-rise collapsed, under construction, in Lagos. Unknown number of dead, and the cloudy questions over construction approvals took attention away from unknown gunmen (possibly women) and the havoc they wrecked. Sadly, we have seen these collapsing incidents too often, and for the same reasons. May the Almighty console the grieving families and granted the departed rest.
WHAT could be done to elicit the interests of the anti-corruption agencies in the billions of Naira allegedly padded in government budgets annually? Even if it was a tradition, our dwindling resources demand attention to curb the wastes, particularly fraudulent ones.
OBI Cubana should have been charged to court if anything was found against him. Keeping him for that long sends wrong signals about how EFCC works. However, those asking EFCC to arrest Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Jagaban Borgu, because bullions vans eased into his Bourdillon estate in Lagos in February 2019, are grossly in error. The differences between Jagaban and Cubana are too many. Cubana didn’t use bullion vans in his transactions and nothing has related him to moving money on the eve of an election unless his eyes were on the Anambra State governorship race. Jagaban Borgu does not run night clubs!
DID anyone notice the noisy arrival of the Inspector-General of Police Usman Baba at the scene of the collapsed high-rise in Lagos? Who knows what made the incident a priority for the IG that he flew from Abuja to see how the building collapsed? One always thought the IG was busy.
AIR Peace sold a one-way ticket, Owerri-Abuja for N95,400 on Thursday, reportedly at the instance of market forces. Can’t market forces make that ticket N9,540? Are the consumer protection agencies also obeisant to market forces?
.Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues
