Crisis Of Insecurity As Challenge Of Development

 By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa

Security of lives and property has been accorded priority attention by governments of different countries of the world, be it democratic or military administration. This is so because an atmosphere devoid of fear, anxiety, threat, harm, etc to citizens’ lives and property will only bring about socio-economic development.

In other words, development cannot thrive in the atmosphere of conflicts, violence, anxiety, fear and wanton destruction of lives and property, as it is currently the case in many parts of Nigeria. Therefore, it follows that there is a strong link between security and development in any social setting.

In Nigeria, Owners Of The Killers Are Back With Impunity!

 By Chidi Odinkalu

Mbabai, the village where Tarnongo Mike Utsaha was buried on April 1, 2023, used to be part of the municipality of Makurdi, the capital of Benue State. It only became part of Guma Local Government Area in Benue North-West in 1987. Current governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, also comes from Guma.

The LGA derives its name from River Guma, which empties into the River Benue, part of a network of fresh water sources that have historically defined that part of Nigeria as the nation’s food basket. With arable land drained by an abundance of freshwater sources on the foothills of the rainy season, this is a neighborhood that should ordinarily bustle at this time of year.

Nigeria’s Invincible Gunmen

 

By Jerry Uwah

Nigeria’s security crisis has taken a precarious nose-dive. Inveterate gangsters derisively tagged gunmen by the Nigerian media have practically turned the country into one huge killing field. 

Last Tuesday the gunmen killed 21 innocent people in different parts of the country. The previous day they killed 18 in one community in Anambra state. The situation in Rivers state is so deplorable that the governor had to declare a curfew. 

The strange development in the escapades of the gunmen is that they are now bold enough to take on those paid and armed to protect the society. In the last two weeks, dozens of policemen have been mowed down by the gunmen who take on police stations as cheap targets. 

I Watched Fulani Herdsmen Kill My Parents – Faith Thomas, School Girl

By Faith Thomas Gyang 

*Faith Thomas Gyang

“My name is Faith Thomas Gyang. I am from Gashish District.

“On Sunday, 9th November, 2012 we were at home, myself, my father and my younger brother watching film. My father then told us that, ‘you know these days are bad’, and he asked us to go and sleep and he prayed for us.

“Around 8pm, we heard gunshots everywhere. My father then said 'these people have come'. He then came out and we all came out the same time with him. As he was trying to go out, my mum stopped him. She went out first and then he followed her. 

Buhari, Bigot Who Does Not Want To Be Seen As Zealot

By Reno Omokri

Have you read Buhari’s Opinion Editorial in the Church Times of UK in which he accused his political opponents of politicising religion? If you have not, do yourself a favour and do not read it. The hypocrisy will make you want to march to Aso Rock and donate two slaps to Buhari’s face!

*President Buhari 

It is just annoying, and certainly hypocritical, that a man who in 2003 said ‘Muslims should only vote for those who would uphold Islam’ is now writing an Op-Ed (can Buhari write? A consultant wrote it) asking Nigerians not to politicise religion. No man has politicised religion in Nigeria like Muhammadu Buhari! It is an insult for Buhari to claim in his consultant written Op-Ed that “Along with the millions of Christians in Nigeria today, I believe in peace, tolerance, and reconciliation”. 

President Buhari As Prisoners’ Taker

By Tony Afejuku

What is the significant significance of President Muhammadu Buhari to us in contemporary Nigeria? For readers who possess a medical or psychological or religious or even chauvinistic perspective he is Mr. President, who, always in his Northern medieval-like chausses, impresses or tries to impress as an answer to the illness, to the sickness of our contemporary times.

*President Buhari 

For those readers with a forward-looking view he is a mere undertaker, who proffers no constructive plan to living Nigerians who are being denied living wages and fabulous education and bodily and economic health they direly need. The man has simply fluffed his three years plus pre-presidential election promises and wishes. And his new next level theory – which I won’t bother to read – will not make him the saccharine president of our dreams. His next-level wishes must enter our Nigerian psyche as those of a political and presidential homunculus. 

Cruelty And The Future Of Nigeria

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

When Niccolo Machiavelli first came up with the idea that cruelty could be rightly or wrongly employed in governing a country, he may have had Nigeria in mind. According to him, ‘cruelty is used well ‘(if it is permissible to talk in this way of what is evil) when it is employed once for all, and one’s safety depends on it, and then it is not persisted in but as far as possible turned to the good of one’s subjects.

*Buhari 

Again, cruelty badly used is that which, although infrequent to start with, as time goes, rather than disappearing, grows in intensity’’. Unfortunately, this is where we are today.

Cardinal Okogie To President Buhari: We Are In Danger In Nigeria Today!

...Open Letter To President Muhammadu Buhari

By Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie

Dear Mr. President,
We read from the media the admonition to religious and traditional rulers at a recent interfaith conference in Abuja.  You advised them to refrain from partisan politics so as not to lose the esteem people have for them.

President Buhari, Leah, Hauwa And Other Hostages

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

With the murder of Hauwa Liman, we have once again been starkly reminded of our lack of governmental bulwark against the savagery of those who are unmoored from all legal and moral boundaries in our midst.

*Leah Sharibu

Yes, it is only a reminder. Successive governments have abandoned the citizens in a gruelling struggle with their challenges. But the battle for daily survival only becomes more tormenting with the lurking reminder that these challenges are not just existential; they are unconscionably inflicted by a pestilential leadership deficit. Now, consider this: Despite the billions of dollars that are yearly voted by the government for electricity, security and other forms of infrastructural development, the citizens are saddled with the responsibility of providing these for themselves. 

Sack These Incompetent Security Chiefs Now!

By Tayo Demola

For several months now, some parts of the nation have been boiling with hostilities. We have since lost count of the number of killings that have taken place. We have lost count of the number of innocent Nigerians that have been killed in one of the most dastard and mindless killings in the history of Nigeria. I can’t believe that this is happening before our own very eyes and nothing has been done about these killings up till now!

President Buhari and Service Chiefs

It seems as if the government has now accepted this as the norm because I’m yet to see any drastic step taken by the President to address these urgent issues and put a permanent stop to these security challenges.  President Muhammadu Buhari should realise that the primary responsibility of government is to protect lives and property and to care for the welfare of the people. The government has failed to provide these for the people.

How To Stop Herdsmen Killings In Nigeria

By Luke Onyekakeyah

President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent statement urging Nigerians to be patient while his security chiefs are racking their brains to tackle the ongoing killings across the country puts the administration at a tight corner. The implication is that government has no strategy yet to deal with a deadly pogrom targeting innocent hapless folks across the country.

The president ought not to have made such statement as that would embolden the killers. How could you tell your enemy who is out to eliminate you that you are still racking brain to know how to tackle him? The statement is self defeatist and totally uncalled for. 

Nigeria: Plateau Massacre And An Overwhelmed President

By Levi Obijiofor

When news broke last week of the massacre of more than 150 women, children, and men in remote communities of Plateau State, everyone turned their attention to President Muhammadu Buhari for his explanation of how the mass murder of citizens on such a scale could take place in a country that is not at war. Buhari is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. In that context, he is also the country’s chief security officer. The buck, we are reminded, always stops at the president’s desk. 

*President Buhari 

When atrocities of extraordinary magnitude occur in any country, the president has an obligation to furnish the citizens with clear, unambiguous, and unexpurgated account of what happened, who was complicit in the murders, and what the security forces did or did not do right to prevent the disaster or to apprehend the criminals. 

For The Sake Of Nigeria, Our Nation!

By Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie

For the sake of our nation exposed to insecurity by absence of governance, the time has come for us to differentiate between a political jobber and a statesman.  A political jobber is a merchant who buys and sells loyalty in order to be in power.  He does not care about the morality of his means.  He would, therefore, do everything to win an election or be declared the winner.  His sole and ultimate objective is access to power and to the perks of office.

Cardinal Okogie 

But the ultimate aim of a statesman is not power.  It is service of the common good.  And even if he plans to win an election, he does not transgress the boundaries of morality.  He is fair in running for office and fair in running the office.   He works for the good of the nation and for the good of its citizens.  Rather than use or threaten to use violence, he shares his vision with the citizens, respects their right to share or repudiate the vision, and their right to decide through an electoral process free of fraud or coercion.  Political jobbers manipulate the electoral process.  Statesmen respect its integrity.  The choice before Nigerians in the 2019 elections, therefore, is that of choosing between political jobbers and statesmen.  And, for the sake of our nation, we must make a right choice this time around. 

Nigeria: Herdsmen’s Endless Blood Lust (2)

By Lewis Obi 
[Read Part One Here]
In October 2000 when General Muhmmadu Buhari literally paralysed the Oyo State Government Secretariat numerous “lorry loads” of angry Fulani cattle rearers, his grievance, as he told the Oyo State Governor Lam Adesina, was that “Fulani cattle herdsmen and merchants are today being harassed, attacked, and killed like in Saki. In the month of May 2000, 68 bodies of Fulani cattle ‘rearers’ were recovered and buried…some arrests were made…in the massacre and they were immediately released without court trial. This was said to have been ordered by Oyo State authorities. The release of the suspects gave the clear impression that the authorities are backing and protecting them to continue the unjust and illegal killings of Fulani cattle herdsmen…”

*Buhari 

Governor Adesina tried to reassure the general and called the heads of the Federal agencies in the state to give their assessment. The Police Commissioner spoke first to the effect that Gen. Buhari must have been misinformed, his figures exaggerated. The Director of the Department of State Security (DSS) spoke at length and stated that “…you (Gen Buhari) said 68 people were killed and people driven away. I am not saying there were no killings, but they cannot be more than five.”

Nigeria And The Silent Majority

By Simon Abah

The founder of this newspaper refused to be silent in the face of governmental-wrong, even when a despot thought it best to cashier him on the long questing route for peace. In spite of his exit to the land of permanent silence years after, his newsprint has maintained its streak of excellence, it publishes well researched materials and avoids sycophantic news reporting, is wholly and strictly without fail, a national paper which approbates to no region or individuals.

I wish Nigerians aren’t known for silence in the face of wrong and tackle governmental persons for accountability, for nationalism. If this were the case, the politicians from the regions where these herdsmen come from would have been pushed into taking action with governments to end the barbarity, after all cattle rearing, established as a thriving economy for herdsmen with a substantial workforce, servicing the whole country wouldn’t be considered positive if brigands go about killing people in whatever guise. 

Checking Inequality In Nigeria’s Security System

By Oludayo Tade

The attitude of the leadership of Nigeria and its security institutions to the safety of the poor and vulnerable is condemnable. In the same system, the social structure ensures the securitisation of the rich.

While the tenets of the rule of law prescribe equality before the law, supremacy of the law and fundamental human rights, the practicality of these in Nigeria is gradated to one’s social position. The poor are worse off in security of lives and property, food security, health security, education security, road security, human rights security, among others.

Buhari: The Making Of A Tragic Hero

By Abraham Ogbodo

The Aristotelian perspective defines the tragic hero as being complete in all the indices of greatness, but lacking in an essential character trait that makes all the difference. This is called the tragic flaw in literary theory and criticism. But for this tiny character failure, which occasions the tragedy, the tragic hero will have arrived safely at destination in the great journey called life.

*President Buhari

This was when tragedy was defined as the exclusive experience of kings and princes. That definition changed with the advent of the 20th Century American playwright and essayist, Arthur Miller, who made every man (not only noble men) a tragic hero.

Nigeria Is On The Boil Again

By Dan Amor

There is a lamentable and disturbing magnitude of violence in Nigeria. So is crime. The country is constantly on the boil. The atmosphere in the country has been nothing but a tawny volcano. The situation conveys at once the chief features of the Nigerian spirit: it is vertical, spontaneous, immaterial, upward. It is ardent. And even as tongues of fire do, it turns into fire everything it touches. What we are experiencing today is induced by poverty, hunger, frustration, apathy, desperation and sectional or tribal expansionist ambition.

In the midst of the misery and lack that is the lot of our youth and other Nigerians, a few Nigerians are still swimming in affluence and under the best security system and protection one can think of. What has indeed compounded the Nigerian misfortune is the sheer bravado, if not braggadocio with which Fulani herdsmen are butchering other Nigerians on a large scale across the country. This is even happening without the sitting government raising an eyebrow against it. Many Nigerians even believe that the Federal Government of President Buhari is culpable in the mass hysteria afflicting the country. It hardly seems a time for timidity and restraint.

Benue Massacre: Are Fulanis Fighting To Conquer Nigeria?

By E.O. Eke

November 2016, after Fulani herdsmen attacked had innocent villagers in Benue and Anambra states, I wrote an article entitled, Is Nigeria Still A Democracy? (Published 16 November 2016).

This is the worst of times, this is the best of times. This is a time to think, this is a time to prepare.

You murder peace when you kill justice. You end unity when you justify discrimination. You lose the trust and confidence of people when you practice nepotism. You invite violence when you make peacefully change impossible. You provoke violent response when you brutalise people by responding to peaceful protest with disproportionate force. These are natural imperatives which hold constant as the law of gravity.

As Wicked As The Nigerian State

By Dan Amor

Anyone living in Nigeria especially since the 2015 general elections and the subsequent emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari as President would have known that politically the nation is sitting on the keg of gun powder. There is a regime of palpable fear in the land as the political thermometer cannot easily be interpreted by analysts no matter how discerning they might be. The situation is compounded by an unnerving weight of mayhem that appears to have engulfed the entire geo-political space like a cankerworm. Rampaging Fulani herdsmen on killing spree have turned many states in the North West and North Central, and many parts of Southern Nigeria to killing fields thereby sentencing thousands of armless Nigerians to their early graves without a blink of an eyelid from the government.

*President Buhari 

In fact, the quality of democratic practice in the past two and a half years has been abysmal, with public functionaries at all levels of government consciously exploiting the weaknesses of the system to advance interests that run counter to the common good. Within the same administration, the Directorate of State Services and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission are at daggers drawn just as the Ministry of Justice and the same EFCC do not see eye to eye. There is a huge disconnect in the security architecture of the country. Aside from Boko Haram and herdsmen insurgency, there are still pockets of mockery killings and kidnappings across the country. In spite of all this, the government does not care any hoot about the survival of the average Nigerian amidst the total collapse of social infrastructure across the country.