No doubt, insecurity is the major problem of Nigeria at the moment. Even unborn babies in their mothers’ wombs in the country know this.
Although a lot had been said on the need to arrest the dangerous trend, things have continued to move from bad to worse.
Every part of the country is affected. From North West to North East; from North Central to South West, and from South East to the South-South, the story is same.
People are being killed per second in bushes, forests, farmlands, roads and even in their homes by merchants of death.
These have gone on for too long without drastic measures by the Federal Government to halt the ugly trend.
Insecurity situation in the country has so affected the nation’s economy that Nigeria cannot even beat her chest on improvement in agriculture, which is always regarded as the major contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP).
Among the states that have heavily borne the brunt of insecurity in the last five years, Benue tops the chart. Taraba also is seriously troubled, and the state has lost so many of its indigenes to senseless killings.
In a country where politicians are only concerned about their own welfare, and do everything to protect that interest, only an infinitesimal number of citizens speak courageously about the ills going on.
While most state actors, out of fear and cowardice, shy away from calling a spade by its proper name, and decide to keep silent over the pains and agonies of their people, thus, fitting into Wole Soyinka’s quote that “the man dies in him who keeps silence in the face of tyranny,” two governors recently laid the matter bare, pointedly calling out the Presidency and President Muhammadu Buhari over the worsening state of affairs in the country, as touching security.
Darius Ishaku, governor of Taraba State, was the first to cry out. He chose an auspicious time to make his feelings known to the whole world.
Ishaku told 15 local government chairmen of the state who paid him a condolence visit after the burial of one of them who was kidnapped and subsequently killed by gunmen, that the worsening insecurity in the country had gone to its lowest ebb, and demanded reawakening.
“The security in this country has gone to the lowest ebb and we have to all wake up,” he sounded a note of warning.
“We, as leaders, have given our pieces of advice severally as to the change to the security architecture, you cannot keep doing one thing over and over and expect a different result,” he said.
According to him, “If we cannot be able to provide security for our citizens, then allow all the citizens to buy AK-47, because if everybody is licensed with AK-47, I swear, nobody will come to your house, or peradventure he does, then it depends on who is faster.
“In a situation where we are all gagged with one security system that has been unable to work, and we are told to sit down and be counting the day our turn will come, I do not agree with it,” Ishaku emphatically said.
If Governor Ishaku’s delivery was punchy, that of
Samuel Ortom, governor of Benue State, was devastatingly direct.
He delivered his message on a day he addressed the media, thanking one and all for their prayers over his recovery from the Covid-19, for which he had tested positive, and isolated.
The governor left no one in doubt of his level of frustration over the continued rampaging activities of killer-herdsmen across the country. He pointedly gave the Nigeria police a zero mark.
If the governor had his way, there would be no Nigeria Police Force. There would be no Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps. Even the Nigerian Army, in so far as they are involved in internal security, would have gone. They no longer exist, in practical terms.
In his estimation, all these Federal Government agencies have woefully failed the nation. They have failed to defend and protect the lives and property of Nigerian citizens.
Ortom, in his bluntness, accused Buhari of bias towards his Fulani tribesmen, reminding him that “he is the President of Nigeria not the President of the Fulani tribe where he hails from”.
He also reminded Buhari his pledge in 2015, to be the President of everybody and of nobody, and therefore, should serve the interest of all Nigerians, irrespective of ethnic or religious leanings.
The governor wondered aloud, “Why is the Federal Government being silent about these Fulani herdsmen? When will Federal Government come out and criticise and arrest herdsmen carrying AK-47? When are they going to do that? Are we second (-class) citizens in this country? Why, (is) the Fulani man superior to a Tiv man? I am not their slave; a Benue man is not slave to any Fulani man in this country.”
He went on: “We stand for justice, equity and fairness. Whatever is happening to a Fulani man should also happen to a Tiv man. That was why I called the Federal Government to license me and many others to have guns, to have AK-47 too. Because, if I have my AK-47 and a Fulani man is coming there, he knows that I have and he has, then we can fight each other.
“But you can’t disarm me and arm a Fulani man. This is not right, the Federal Government is biased, it is unfair. The failure in security is caused by Federal Government.”
Ortom reminded President Buhari that: “You are the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, you are not the President of Fulani. You are the President of everybody and I owe you a duty as a stakeholder in this nation to let you know that what is going on is wrong and this has the potential of dividing this country, which will not be in the interest of anyone – some of us believe in the unity of this country.”
Governor Ortom wondered why Abuja would ban some groups that are not violent in nature, while leaving out some others that had been rated globally as number our most dangerous group in the world. He also wondered why no arrest has been made of the herdsmen that carry of the heinous activities across the country, including giving people slow deaths.
The governor pointed out that the decision by the Presidency to rise in defense of herdsmen any time they are being criticised or condemned for destroying people’s farms was unbecoming of a federal government and that such actions gave the President away as being biased.
Governor Ortom is not even ready to close his mouth over the situation. He has taken it upon himself to shout to the roof tops, perhaps, he may be heard. He said he was not afraid of being persecuted for his stand, as he had passed through such before, to the point of attempted impeachment.
On Thursday, February, he addressed a press conference in Abuja, where he insisted that there was the need to review the ECOWAS Protocol on Movement, to ensure that foreigners/citizens of other countries do not continue to move into Nigeria with their cattle, without check.
He also called for a state of emergency on security in the country, warning that if that step is not taken, “We may wake up one day to find out that there is no more Nigeria.”
