• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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BusinessDay

#ENDSARS: National security and a new national conversation

Nigeria protest

After the senseless killing of unarmed and peacefully protesting Nigerian youths, both President Muhammadu and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo can no longer claim plausible deniability, because only agents and agencies of the Federal Government have the right to bear arms in Nigeria. The #EndSARS protests driven by Nigeria’s youth are an unprecedented and extraordinary phenomenon that must compel Nigeria’s elite and its political leadership to rethink a number of cherished and longstanding orthodoxies and conventional wisdoms. Two of these include the concepts of “national security” and “administration of justice” respectively.

The first soundings from the FG on concerns about “national security” portended the arrival of soldiers on the streets – many disinterested and untrained in modern crowd management techniques or in human rights, many with combat experience in the Niger Delta and the Northeast. Followed by news of a break out from the Benin Correctional Centre (formerly Benin Prison), it was obvious that the #EndSARS protests would be painted in official quarters as a plot to cause anarchy and mayhem in the country, even as there was and still is no evidence of such a thing.

Without condoning or promoting a breakdown of law and order, BusinessDay sounds a note of caution about the haste to jump to conclusions and rush to take heavy handed actions that will only amount to starting the conflagration that no one wants.

We say emphatically that the elite and leaders of Nigeria at all levels must, first, recognise and henceforth take account of the reality that Nigeria’s youths have decided that the aphorism that “youths are the leaders of tomorrow” must become reality today. Second, the #EndSARS protests have demonstrated a serious capacity for planning, fundraising, execution, use of technology and management by Nigeria’s youths that should not be taken for granted. We predict that these two considerations cannot be undermined by street thugs seeking to cause mayhem or by attempts to undermine popular protests through brutality, bribery and planting fifth columnists amongst the organisers of these protests. Rather, they will henceforth be a feature of the necessary engagement between governments and the citizenry.

The definition of “national security” in Nigeria, conditioned by a modern history of military coups, assassination of national leaders and the Nigerian Civil War, is rooted firmly in considerations of regime security and the personal wellbeing of the elite leadership even as far down as local government level, while paying only lip service to the citizenry for whose benefit the country purports to exist. It was only in the 2019 National Security Strategy document that President Muhammadu Buhari acknowledged the importance of adherence to the rule of law as a pillar of national security. Yet, the #EndSARS protest proves conclusively that upholding the rule of law is still something of an aspiration and not yet a reality for Nigeria’s leaders. They have yet to appreciate that national security is really about nothing but the wellbeing of the citizenry and not that of the elite and/or the leadership. As Nigerian-British Professor of Development and Security Studies and Vice-Principal of King’s College, London, Professor Funmi Olonisakin, succinctly put it: “people simply want to live well and live long; and if they cannot live long they certainly want to live well.” Any country that does not enact and execute policies with these simple objectives constantly in focus will, quite simply, fail.

Viewed through this prism, the intimate connection between national security and the rule of law/administration of justice is both inevitable and highly desirable. Nigeria is a country whose system of the administration of justice is stunted, hobbled, malnourished and grossly suboptimal. Our courts are slow, antiquated, subject to abuse in the appointment of judges and perceived to be compromised by State power. The prison/correctional system is subhuman and in no way capable of serving as conducive to restitution, rehabilitation and the humane treatment of offenders. State and Federal Attorneys-General are prone to forget that they are also Commissioners and Ministers of Justice and thus should be focused on prioritising and vindicating the rights of the citizenry, instead of being primarily legal advisers who justify everything governments do, good and bad. Above all, the police, even after a new Police Act, 2020, is still unable to change its name even symbolically to “Police Service” rather than “Police Force”. Its recruitment and training practices are antiquated and even inhumane in many ways. It is poorly equipped and armed and is perceived by the overwhelming proportion of the population to be not merely unfriendly but even their enemy. In spite of its new enabling law, it is still arguable that the police is yet to shed the carry-over of the colonial mentality of an adversarial relationship between the coloniser and the colonised.

We are not surprised that after 60 years, a generation has arisen in Nigeria. And for Nigeria that not only says “enough is enough” but also follows up with decisive but peaceful action. Nigeria will never be the same again. We were pleased that last Thursday the National Economic Council (NEC), under the chairmanship of the Vice-President, decided that State Governors should immediately launch official inquiries into reports of inhuman treatment and brutalisation by the Police. However, we bear in mind that the key players in the national security establishment are all controlled by the Federal Government. We are therefore saddened by and unequivocally condemn the very recent killings of peaceful protesters in Abuja and Lagos. Already, before official statements have come from the Federal Government in Abuja, interested foreign entities and politicians have called on the Federal Government to take responsibility and stop the official lawlessness and impunity that is now on display.

Therefore, we would advocate that the Federal Government ought to weigh in with decisive actions, including:

1. Direct the immediate investigation of every police officer and soldier of whatever rank suspected in Police/SARS/military extra-judicial killings before and during the #EndSARS protests. A joint committee of NHRC and human rights NGOs should monitor these investigations. This Committee must start work no later than Monday, 26th October;

2. All investigations must conclude no later than 26th November 2020 and report findings to the Federal Attorney-General who must in every case decide whether or not to prosecute such a person within 3 working days of receiving the report;

3. Simultaneously, a special judicial commission of inquiry should be constituted with terms of reference centred on an examination of every facet of policing and law enforcement in Nigeria and propose, within 4 months measures to reform/transform law enforcement and the administration of justice in Nigeria through a range of short- and medium-term measures;

4. The President or Vice-President, and no one lower, should directly oversee the entire process and have full supervision of the Federal Attorney-General, with power to immediately override any decision of the AG or direct decisive action, if needs be;

5. Given the fact that innocent and unarmed protesters have been killed without apparent justification in the course of peaceful #EndSARS protests, the Police Service Commission, the IGP and all DIGs should immediately leave office and successors named simultaneously, whilst current office holders remain in place until successors take over, which takeover must be within 24 hours of the announcement;

6. Given the incendiary and provocative statements and actions made by the Chief of Army Staff and the fact that they are perceived by Nigerians to have spent too long in office without real benefits for the security situation in the country, all four (4) Defence Service Chiefs should be retired immediately and successors named, whilst the Senate is requested to screen successors immediately as required by the Armed Forces Act and current holders remain in place until successors are sworn in; and

7. Simultaneously, Nigeria’s economy as currently structured will not and cannot deliver the economic expansion required to create jobs for our youths and lead to output growth across the broad spectrum. So, a national conversation should start around themes of rapid economic expansion, reconciliation as well as righting wrongs at national and State levels with credible technocrats and leaders of CSOs that have been at the forefront of speaking up in support of the #EndSARS protests and the protection of human rights. In this regard, the President should convene a group of credible men and women to foster such a conversation and return within 2 weeks with a number of steps that can be taken immediately to establish that the Government does indeed have the will to do the right things.

This time the killing of unarmed, peaceful Nigerian youths must have serious consequences. This is the only way to defuse tension across Nigeria, rather than threaten to bring down the heavy hand of government, as Minister of Information did recently. The thread that connects the #EndSARS protests, a conversation around national security that redefines it from the citizens’ viewpoint, a new national ethic and turning around the national economy is obvious to us and, we hope, to the country’s leaders. If it is not obvious, the voices of concern from abroad make it so.

We urge President Muhammadu Buhari to speak personally along the lines proposed above and thus enable the work of genuine reconciliation and national recovery to start.