As Multi-Dimensional Insecurity Ravages Nigerians

By Adekunle Adekoya

Last week I opined that in terms of security, our dear nation is still at 100 level. To those who know, 100 level, in our clime, is generally used to refer to the first year of study in a university. In other countries, 100 level students, or JAMBites, here, are also called freshmen. Compared with many countries, Nigeria is a fresher in terms of security, and yes, some fellow African countries, lumped together as the Third World. Much of what goes on here is simply not tolerated next door in Benin Republic. 

On a trip to Cotonou a few years ago, I was amazed at how the gendarmes (police) there controlled traffic by merely blowing whistles. I saw, on that trip, how a truck that rammed into a street light pole on the highway was arrested and detained. I was also told that the vehicle will not be released to its owners until they have paid the cost of repairing the damaged street light pole. Here, that happens daily, and government bears the cost. In any case, most of the street light poles don’t give light, so nobody bothers.

Nigeria: Terror Alert And Doubting Thomases

 By Ray Ekpu

The United States and United Kingdom embassies in Nigeria have raised the alarm over possible terror attack on facilities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. Other countries have followed suit. These include Denmark, Bulgaria, Germany, Ireland and Canada. Although these countries are addressing their message to their citizens living in or visiting Nigeria, it is obvious that the message is also for the benefit of Nigerians and the federal government. 

The United States advisory says that the terrorists might target such places as government buildings, places of worship, schools, markets, shopping malls, hotels, bars, restaurants, athletic gatherings and transport terminals, facilities belonging to law enforcement agencies and international organisations. The American embassy therefore directed its non-essential staff and their family members to either leave the FCT or avoid public places. Many of the places mentioned by the embassy have been attacked by terrorists either in Abuja or elsewhere in the country so they are all potentially vulnerable. 

Is The Nigerian Army Capable Of Defeating Boko Haram?

By Simon Abah

 Many military strategists x-ray strategies to tackle the scourge of terror which has damaged the image of Nigeria globally. It is highly commendable that President Muhammadu Buhari as stated in the past, “has absolute confidence in the ability of the Nigerian military to bring to an end the insurgency spearheaded by members of the Boko Haram sect.”

But I have always believed that the military alone cannot end the war on insurgency without the support of the political benefactors of terror in the first place. In 2013, I asked a young army officer (now late) if the military can stamp out Boko Haram, he shook his head, “not with this commander-in-chief of the armed forces,” he said. Whatever that meant I didn’t bother to ask.

Nigeria: Boko Haram Needs No Amnesty

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It was President Muhammadu Buhari’s veiled sympathy for Boko Haram that found expression in his slouching through the murky water of proposing to dialogue with the murderous bandits. This having failed to resonate with the citizens, the government is flailing toward the option of granting amnesty to Boko Haram members. But neither dialogue nor amnesty is the appropriate response to Boko Haram now. The government is propelled onto the path of offering amnesty because it has reached its wits’ end as regards the insurgents. It is now confronted with the stark futility of its triumphalism over what it dubbed a technical defeat of the killers.

Instead of contemplating amnesty, the government should declare that it has been defeated by Boko Haram, technically or otherwise. A follow-up to such a declaration is that the government should award the contract for a fight against Boko Haram to contractors to prosecute. Such contractors should be foreigners. For, we need our doubts to be cleared about the invincibility or otherwise of Boko Haram through foreigners who do not sympathise with them fighting them. A complicity of events since the emergence of Buhari as the president has rendered it difficult for us not to align with the suspicion that Boko Haram enjoys official sympathy. Or was it not state sympathy that would make Boko Haram to invade Dapchi in a convoy of trucks, abduct 110 schoolgirls and return them in the same manner without any obstruction from security operatives and other citizens?