Gbenro Adesina
The Chairman of Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state has alerted the nation over the impending doom that terrorism may bring to Nigeria, stating “the continued existence of Boko Haram represents the most potent threat to our national security”.
Fayemi stated this today in Ibadan, while delivering a lecture titled, “Security and National Unity in Difficult Times”, at the annual birthday lecture series in commemoration of the birthday of the former Minority Whip of the House of Representatives, Hon. Babatunde Oduyoye.
The Governor, who pointed out that about N5.5 trillion has been channelled to financing crimes and terrorism in Nigeria pointed out, “Organizations like Boko Haram are primarily concerned with establishing states within the state”.
He said, “They are characteristically asymmetrical in structure, and organized along flat lines and diffuse cells, rather than with orthodox pyramidal hierarchies and clearly defined chains of command and control. Although their objectives are local, they enjoy linkages with global fraternities that pursue similar goals. In other words, their aims are local but their perspective is transnational. They have continued to change their tactics and have remained intractable. Many of the mass kidnappings going on in most parts of the country could be linked to them. Because their sources of funding are being blocked, they are turning to kidnapping to sustain the war”.
The astute state administrator lamented the high level of drug addiction by the youth and unimaginable small and light weapons in the country.
He explained, “Nigeria is a transit point for heroin and cocaine intended for the European, East Asian and North American markets. According to the UNODC, there is a growing concern that the whole of West Africa is changing more and more from just being a stockpiling place into a hub where cocaine is traded with about two-thirds of cocaine from South America to Europe passing through West Africa, and Nigeria is the most significant transhipment point. Equally, Afghan heroin is trafficked through Pakistan and the Middle East into West Africa for onward transhipment to Europe”.
Fayemi stated, “The government estimates that up to 3 million bottles of the addictive syrup are drunk every day in just two northern states. Tramadol abuse is widely prevalent with Customs seizing trailer loads worth billions of naira of the drug every time. And then, If we combine this with the widespread cultivation, sale and use of other psychotropic substances such s cannabis sativa and what they call “monkey tail”, “colorado” and a host of others other dangerous substance mixtures, we can imagine the deleterious effect this is having on the health conditions of Nigerians, and the propensity for deviant behaviour by our youths”.
“In the same vein, the proliferation of small arms is partly the concomitant effect of the weakening of states in the post-cold war era. The world has become awash with Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, it is estimated that there are over 600 million SALW in circulation worldwide that contribute to the destabilization of states and the facilitation of violent crimes resulting in instability in many states. Over 30 million of such weapons are traced to West Africa according to the Small Arms Survey and 70% of it might be in Nigeria. Nigeria’s immediate geopolitical neighbourhood is the Sahel, an area of just over 3 million sq. km, occupied by a profusion of weak states and rich in natural resources”, he added.
The full text of the Lecture is below:
Introduction
Let me start by congratulating Hon. Babatunde Oduyoye on the occasion of his birthday. He is an unassuming personality who has continued to earn my respect because of his strength of character. That we are here today in a programme like this is a testimony to his character as a serious minded and highly cerebral politician.
Hon. Oduyoye has built a solid political brand that has been able to withstand the vicissitude of the turbulent political climate of Ibadan. He has proven his political mettle in so many instances and it is no wonder he has continued to be relevant. It is very telling that while many celebrate their birthday, sometime with obscene opulence and profligate pageantry, Hon. Oduyoye has chosen to celebrate his birthday through a convocation of intellectual prefects to feast on the most pressing issue in our national polity today.
I want to thank all the people who have come to honour our friend in this event. I am to speak on Security and National Unity in Trying Times and I want to commend the celebrant and the planning committee for this topic which has remained relevant event at this time.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Ladies and gentlemen, security of life is the most important of all the functions of government, it is therefore no surprise that the nation’s security situation has continued to receive intensity and frequency of discourse in private and public gatherings in Nigeria. There is no further evidence to prove that we are all concerned about the security situation than the fact that security is a major item of discourse in most national gatherings, whether in Nigeria Governors’ Forum, National Executive Council or National Assembly, media chats etc. security remains on top of the chart.
Defining Insecurity
Even though the term “insecurity” may not fit into a definitional precision because of the dimensions of meanings which it connotes under differing situations, I will attempt to define insecurity as a state of being physically or psychologically threatened, unprotected, uninsured or vulnerable. In general human security perspective, it is the absence of fear and want.
In the analysis of security therefore, we will look beyond physical security threat and consider other sources of fear. While the most talked-about form of security is physical security which often deals with protection of human and material resources in a given environment from bodily harm, death, terrorism, arson, assault, theft, burglary, kidnapping, accident, vandalism, poisoning, chemical attacks and so on, security goes beyond armed protection. Other forms of security with wider implication on human security include food security, social security and cyber-security.
Similarly, in the analysis of security of a nation today, it is important to consider the availability of social security. The strength of any modern society rests on the level of social protection it can provide for the vulnerable segment of its population and how well, such a social insurance guarantees that nobody is left behind. This is because in the calculation of threat, the metric should constantly evaluate the people who could potentially want to tear down the system because they have nothing to lose; this segment who may be vulnerable as a result of physical disability, age or economic disadvantage are generally targeted for protection through welfare system.
Equally, the dawn of the new century has occasioned a paradigm shift in the notion and understanding of security. In 1994, the UNDP Human Development Report for the first time, drew an inextricable linkage between security and development, underscoring the necessity for the security of people, rather than territories; and individuals, rather than states. This became known in academic and policy circles as human security.
After twenty-two years into the Fourth Republic, Nigeria is confronted by a new, more complex and treacherous threat environment. The orientation that previously governed the operation of our security agencies, having been tailored to address the perceived dangers of yesteryears, is now out of date. The new national security threat environment calls for the design and application of innovative metrics in assessing threats, as well as new analytical models and policy initiatives.
If we take the above as a broad definition of contemporary security situation in Nigeria, then perhaps the first security concern that must be factored into any matrix is social security. The lack of it has been identified as a direct cause of insecurity in most cases.
As societies evolve, the composition of security threat, especially in the age of information communication technology, is also shifting from mere physical assaults to cyber warfare. In fact, today’s warfare is supersonic and ICT driven; and so the safety of the invisible cyberspace is the beginning of national security. In the information and communication age, a whole nation could be brought to its knees if its financial system and ICT infrastructure are compromised by hackers. For example, Central Bank of Nigeria reported a few months ago that the banking industry in Nigeria has lost over 5.5 trillion naira to internet fraud in the last ten years. Most of such money is channelled to financing crimes and terrorism.
Insecurity in Nigeria
The challenge of insecurity in Nigeria is frightening and is getting all of us concerned. At the dawn of the current democratic dispensation in 1999, the major concern of security experts was the staccato of ethnic and religions violence that was common then, that was before the dawn of the Niger-Delta militancy which took almost a decade. A new phenomenon in insecurity however waded in with the violent campaign of Boko Haram activities in many parts of the north. A precursor to that was the Sharia crisis of the early 2000s and the middle-belt ethno-religious internecine hostilities. In all of these, Nigeria has shown a tremendous resilience in confronting these challenges. However, other dimensions of sectarian violence and secessionist agitation have emerged particularly in the South Eastern part of the country and to a lesser extent in parts of the South West.
Even though ethno-religious crisis might not have been completely wiped out, the intensity and frequency of its occurrence has gone down considerably. Today, the once dominant Niger-Delta militancy and the socioeconomic destructions that it brought about are virtually non-existent.
But as we are relieved of the agony of the Niger-Delta militancy and the middle-belt killings, a new mutation of the crisis emerged in herder-farmer clashes. Ordinarily, this has been an age long economic standoff between farmers and herders which was easily locally resolved by community elders. A new dimension came into the mix mid-2000s with the introduction of sophisticated weapons and organised attacks on villages in Plateau, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Benue and some parts of Kogi. Even though the occurrence of this type of attack is now infrequent, periodic and cyclical form of the attacks still exists.
In recent years, we started to experience cattle rustling and armed banditry in the northwest zone. This lingered for a long time in the rural areas and has left a lot of people dead. The unfortunate effect of this is that a new cult of bandits has emerged with an audacious capacity to take over highways or human settlement for kidnappings. What started mainly in Zamfara and later Kaduna and Katsina, some seven years ago, has now taken over the whole nation with all of us living in palpable fear and apprehension. Kidnapping has gone on an industrial scale as students are taken in their hundreds and people woken up in their beds and taken away for ransom.
An observation to make from this is that the characteristics of insecurity in Nigeria is amorphous. As one source of insecurity is tackled, another one emerges; but it seems Boko haram insurgency is the most challenging, prolonged and frustrating so far. Because Boko Haram insurgence is inspired by a religious ideology of the re-enactment of an imaginary classical Islamic caliphate where the “purest” form of Islam is established, the adherents to this sectarian philosophy see participating in the jihad as a personal duty, while death is an honour. Unlike other criminal activities which have economic foundations or goals, religions insurgencies are always difficult to quell, especially in an environment that provides a fertile ground for asymmetric guerrilla warfare.
Since the Boko Haram crisis started, it is estimated that over 40, 000 people might have been killed with millions living in IDPs. The economic life of Borno and by implication, Nigeria, has been negatively impacted. Education, health and social facilities have been wantonly destroyed, while many families have been dislocated.
With the mass kidnappings now going on nationwide, which has been identified as a strategy of fund raising to sustain the Boko Haram war, the security matrix is getting more complicated and the nation’s security architecture seems gravely overwhelmed. It is not difficult to see fear, despondence and hopelessness among our citizenry when they report their experience in the hands of criminals. Even at leadership level, everyone is distressed and a lot of the governors actually feel helpless in the face of the orgy of violence against their people. In all of this frustration, the easiest thing to do is buck passing and scapegoating. And we should resist the temptation.
In spite of this, I have the confidence that even though the situation might look helpless, there will always be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I am confident that sooner than later, the security situation of the country will see a significant improvement and that any triumph of evil over good, can only be for a short time and for a learning purpose. Nigeria will come out stronger from this moment of national distress.
This optimism is not misplaced. Although the constitution of our country did not give much powers to the governors in terms of actual security control of the State, my role as the Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum has granted me some insights into the security system of the country and the many underground efforts to tackle the myriads of insecurity issues confronting us as a nation. This moment also calls for sober reflection and system overhaul, going forward.
The Way Forward
The continued existence of Boko Haram represents the most potent threat to our national security. Organizations like Boko Haram are primarily concerned with establishing states within the state. They are characteristically asymmetrical in structure, and organized along flat lines and diffuse cells, rather than with orthodox pyramidal hierarchies and clearly defined chains of command and control. Although their objectives are local, they enjoy linkages with global fraternities that pursue similar goals. In other words, their aims are local but their perspective is transnational. They have continued to change their tactics and have remained intractable. Many of the mass kidnappings going on in most parts of the country could be linked to them. Because their sources of funding are being blocked, they are turning to kidnapping to sustain the war.
The response to Boko-Haram has been largely characterized by kinetic military operations. Since it is clear that the crisis itself is multi-dimensional, it is obvious that the solution cannot be uni-dimensional. The challenge clearly remains the accurate prognosis of the threat (intelligence), a clear articulation as well as clinical implementation of the strategy to adopt.
More importantly, lack of right equipment for this kind of war has limited the effectiveness of the military intervention. In response to this, in 2018, both the Federal and States government had agreed to 1 billion dollars support from the ECA account to fund the purchase of Super Tucano helicopters among other military equipment which have now been delivered. The nation has also acquired new platforms and fighting equipment that can help to bring the war to an end and we could see the impact in the fact that Boko Haram elements are giving up on the battlefield. Effort to recruit more people into the security forces are also ongoing but grossly inadequate.
However, experience elsewhere in countering violent extremism requires a multi-dimensional strategy. Indeed, a pioneering study of 648 terrorist groups (1968-2006) by the Rand Corporation found that terrorist groups rarely cease to exist due to military defeat – indeed only 7% were militarily defeated, the bulk were resolved through policing actions and negotiated settlements.
Clearly, military intervention is a small part of counter-terrorism strategy and should be used as a narrowly defined tool accompanied by diplomatic, social and criminal justice models as essential components for comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy. In being tough on terrorism, it is also important to be tough on the root causes of terrorism and the drivers that fuel violent extremism. Underlying grievances must be addressed and the need for a Marshall Plan to assist the victims is central to the resolution. The creation of the North East Development Commission is a response to this need. And it is hoped that the region will witness rapid economic development that can discourage seduction of impressionable youths into the fantasies of Boko Haram’s theocratic Eldorado.
Besides however, two of such fuelling agents that we have not comprehensively addressed alongside violent extremism are drugs and small arms. According to the UNODC, Nigeria is a transit point for heroin and cocaine intended for the European, East Asian and North American markets. According to the UNODC, there is a growing concern that the whole of West Africa is changing more and more from just being a stockpiling place into a hub where cocaine is traded with about two-thirds of cocaine from South America to Europe passing through West Africa, and Nigeria is the most significant transhipment point. Equally, Afghan heroin is trafficked through Pakistan and the Middle East into West Africa for onward transhipment to Europe.
A 2018 documentary by award winning Ruona Agbroko-Meyer for BBC reported that “thousands of young Nigerians are addicted to codeine cough syrup – a medicine that’s become a street drug. The government estimates that up to 3 million bottles of the addictive syrup are drunk every day in just two northern states.” Tramadol abuse is widely prevalent with Customs seizing trailer loads worth billions of naira of the drug every time. And then, If we combine this with the widespread cultivation, sale and use of other psychotropic substances such s cannabis sativa and what they call “monkey tail”, “colorado” and a host of others other dangerous substance mixtures, we can imagine the deleterious effect this is having on the health conditions of Nigerians, and the propensity for deviant behaviour by our youths.
In the same vein, the proliferation of small arms is partly the concomitant effect of the weakening of states in the post-cold war era. The world has become awash with Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, it is estimated that there are over 600 million SALW in circulation worldwide that contribute to the destabilization of states and the facilitation of violent crimes resulting in instability in many states. Over 30 million of such weapons are traced to West Africa according to the Small Arms Survey and 70% of it might be in Nigeria. Nigeria’s immediate geopolitical neighbourhood is the Sahel, an area of just over 3 million sq. km, occupied by a profusion of weak states and rich in natural resources.
The region’s most recent crisis has been caused by a convergence of drought, food insecurity, ecological degradation, political instability, conflict and the large numbers of internally displaced people and refugees. The problem of weak states has permitted a number of non-state actors including gangs, arms dealers, rebel groups, drug dealers and terrorists to flourish in the area. Weapons looted from Libyan armouries in the wake of the fall of Muammar Gaddafi have made their way across the region and have fallen into the hands of Tuareg rebels, and terrorist groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP.
Added to this is Nigeria’s extensive and porous borders covering over 4000 kilometres littered with illegal entry points and routes totalling 1500 points. With the porous borders, criminal gangs and terrorist insurgents could easily stroll in with smuggled weapons into the country which in turn are sold to sea pirates, cultist, armed robbers, kidnappers, bandits and other purveyors of violence in the Nigerian state. The challenge we face is how to stem the tide of SALW proliferation in the face of our weak customs and immigration institutions. We may also need to reassess ECOWAS protocol on transhumance movement and how this has affected the health of our nation.
Related to the security of our borders is maritime security. This is not only important in terms of protecting the exploitation of maritime resources, particularly off-shore oil, but also in terms of securing livelihoods and development. Piracy is a growing phenomenon in our coastal waters and poses a serious threat to security in the sub-region. The Niger Delta and the Gulf of Guinea which cover an area of about 2000 nautical miles are already theatres of criminal activities ranging from oil theft and human trafficking to weapons trading and drug smuggling.
Between 2003 and 2011, the Gulf of Guinea accounted for about 30% of piracy attacks, mostly off the coast of Nigeria, Angola and Republic of Congo. The region is said to be a source of about 5.4million barrels of oil per day and Nigeria accounts for 47% of the total oil supply from the area. Yet, the Gulf of Guinea is rated the second most dangerous pirate-infested region after the Somali coast.
Although experts are increasingly of the view that the Gulf of Guinea is at least as dangerous as the Gulf of Aden, data on piracy in the former is not as refined as that on the Somali coast. The Gulf of Guinea generally gets less attention than the more notorious waters on the other side of Africa. But this is now changing. Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea is partly an outgrowth of the decade-long insurgency in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region. The vast, complex and largely unpoliced network of creeks and waterways that traverse the region make it a suitable environment for pirates and other criminal gangs. Furthermore, it is home to a sizeable population of unemployed youths, many of whom have been schooled in the dark arts of militant gangsterism and insurgency, and are ready recruits for the lucrative ventures in piracy and oil theft.
Climate change in the Sahel has also disrupted pastoral communities leading to their migration southward into Nigeria in search of wetlands. The increased rate of migration has led to more frequent clashes between herding communities and farmers struggling over scarce land. In the past ten years, these conflicts have become increasingly violent with both parties deploying high-grade weapons. While this conflict is strictly ecological and economic in the sense that the struggle is over land, it has the potential to metastasize into a multidimensional crisis involving issues of identity, ethnicity, religion, politics and land ownership. In fact, most of banditry and kidnapping that is happening all over Nigeria cannot be disassociated from this kind of desperate migration.
Since the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1999, sectarian clashes have claimed an estimated seventy thousand lives across Nigeria. These clashes have not only been inter-ethnic or inter-religious; they have also been intra-ethnic and intra-religious. The increase in the incidence of conflict suggests that there is a correlation between democratization and violence. A major reason for this is the nature of democracy itself. After decades of military rule, democracy was expected to usher in peace and stability.
But democracy has liberalized the political space unleashing tensions that were previously bottled up by the coercive might of the military. Repressed identities and resentments have emerged as powerful currents in the polity with renascent communities making claims and counter-claims on power under the banner of micro-nationalism. The current secessionist posture of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and self-determination activism from across most southern region of Nigeria, are reflective of the liberalized political environment.
The intensity of political contest for power which often leverages the passions and sentiments of micro-nationalism and other forms of sectarian populism raise the potential for violence in our polity. In this way, politics itself, in an under-institutionalized country still struggling to entrench rule of law, generates significant security risks that must be accommodated in our threat assessment matrix.
But the positive opportunity that these agitations provide will be for us to further renegotiate our constitution to produce a more localised federal power structure. Our security structure as presently constituted cannot deliver peace and unity. It only breeds local resentment to the federal government which in spite of its endless and determined effort to end insecurity remains unappreciated because of the inability of the security structure to promptly respond to threats before they go out of hands. The time for state and other layers of a multi-level policing police system is now.
In fact the creation of Amotekun can only be a precursor to this. We need a security system that is localised, knowledgeable about the culture and security situation of a particular community. But we need to amend the constitution to empower the various security initiatives to be able to respond to the current challenges. For example, despite not possessing Ak47 which the bandits possess, Amotekun operatives have been courageous to confront them in the forest and have successfully rescued victims of kidnapping and arrested the criminals in some instances. Yet, these people are at best, volunteer corps with encouragement stipend paid to them. They don’t earn as much as the conventional police, yet they are better motivated to throw themselves to the protection of the community where they have their wives, children and families.
As part of our effort to ensure that Amotekun is able to function better, Ekiti State has ordered for sophisticated drones that are capable of tracking these criminals wherever they are hiding. We are also paying attention to protective wears and other safety gadgets that will enhance the performance of the corps.
NATIONAL UNITY IN TRYING TIMES
Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, the mutating security situation in our country, requires a concerted effort. This is no time for politics of blame and opportunistic opposition. We need to unite in the face of these evil merchants who have no respect for children, old age, women, clergy or traditional authorities. They are unsparing and are callous. They have no sympathy for religion, ethnicity or authority and undiscriminating in the pursuit of their satanic enterprise. We must not be ashamed to call for assistance from wherever we can get it in terms of technology, equipment and personnel.
In addition, there are two things that we need to address quickly to bring the current wave of insecurity to a halt. We need to have a conversation on how we can recruit a large number of people to join the police and the military even on a short service or otherwise. By available statistics, we need minimum of two hundred thousand personnel to boost the fighting power of our men. This number is very large and a potential financial and logistic nightmare, yet we cannot delay any further. The ungoverned spaces need to be closed up quickly by motivated men with the singular objective to save the nation.
That takes us to the number two issue of financing and arming large recruitment. I believe one of the cheapest and fastest ways to handle this is to amend the law setting up the Nation Youths Service Corps (NYSC) such that we can use the existing orientation camps to train willing and able graduates to reflate the security personnel under a special arrangement that will be worked out. That way, the fund that is currently deployed to the NYSC can be used with just some additional funding which could be sourced through a national emergency fund for the next five to ten years.
Those who cannot join the military services can serve in their community without pay if we must still retain the NYSC for everyone. To incentivise those who may volunteer to serve, they will have a separate certificate and medal of honour in addition to having priority for military, paramilitary and civil or public service recruitment after service.
We also need to encourage investment in the real sectors that can engage people and reduce unemployment which is a major source of insecurity. I urge Nigerians who have the means, to set up businesses and industries that support their primary goals. Let us consider joint ventureship in agro-allied industry in addition to building halls, malls and universities. Today, the greatest challenges facing the country is the youth explosion and the corresponding unemployment challenge. Investment in agriculture is smart for us as this will guarantee employment and food security. We must also understand that agriculture was the major industry that got us out of the two recessions we had to fall into by default.
We also need to start confronting issues relating to our burgeoning population with boldness. There is simply no way we can continue to grow our population at this geometric rate. The girl child now needs to receive priority and they all must benefit from free, compulsory and qualitative education till SSS 3. Education remains the greatest antidote to poverty.
In Ekiti, we are investing hugely in the Agriculture and Education sectors. From livestock to food and cash crops and value-chain processing, we are working to ensure that we leverage our unique advantage in agriculture and knowledge to birth an industry that is capable of employing our youths. We are developing a unique agric-processing and knowledge economic zones, first in West Africa, that is targeting to create job and redirect the energy and creativity of the youth to positive use. Our idea is to create a processing hub where our farm produce can be processed for export. To facilitate our international market ambition, we are already building what we become the best Agro-cargo airport in Nigeria. We are also building a tech city that will become the choice place for young tech entrepreneurs in our knowledge zone.
The political class also needs to fashion a new way of communicating their politics beyond the now obnoxious resort to ethnic jingoism, sectarian and divisive rhetoric. This nation is in need of patriotic statesmen and women and not rumour mongers, ethnic crisis entrepreneurs, provincial men of little minds who see everything from the prism of ethnic and religious conspiracy. It is time we started a new conversation about our national development, peace and prosperity. There should be an elite consensus on what is the minimum irreducible and acceptable standard of public conduct, but taking due cognisance that peace can only come on the platter of fairness and justice. It is time to build a nation and not to fritter it away.
As I bring this lecture to a close, I like to congratulate Hon. Babatunde Oduwoye again on his birthday and to wish him many more years in good health.
Thank you for listening
Dr. Kayode Fayemi, CON
