Does National Security Expire?

Does National Security Expire?

The Anarchy

The anarchy brewing in Nigeria is near complete. Noting the security problem in Nigeria is dire is not news. It has become a daily and worsening fact. Wear is Nigeria’s national security? No one person or institution is safe from violence in the country any longer. Not even the military academies and barracks, high security prisons, nor police stations. And not the Presidential Guard or the President himself. What does the President, Buhari care? Moreover, the Government of Nigeria (GON) has no effective response to the failing state of security in the country. None. None from above and none from below. Video clips of bandits, terrorists, and criminals hold one key reason for this sorry state in plain sight.

Accordingly, the fabric of Nigerian society and culture is today determined by the insecurity. Both rural and urban areas are just as unsafe as each other. The roads are now highways to hell. It is that bad.

The Insurgents

You may have seen several video clips of insurgents assaulting soldiers, barracks, or prisons. The exchanges of fire are the same. The insurgents always appear to have the upper hand shooting bullets without reserve. For example, one insurgent shoots a fleeing soldier in the head, who then falls dead or critically injured. The insurgent further shoots the dead soldier in the head another ten times and his chest six times. The insurgent may then he may shoot bullets several times into the air. That is, he may squander twenty to thirty bullets when one or two had done the job.

Such a display of bullet abundance by insurgents may be a message of intimidation to Nigerian security personnel. But how?

The Nigerian authorities issue security personnel with rations of bullets on patrols and missions. For example, the command will give a corporal in the police or private in the army a small ration of, say, fourteen bullets to go fight insurgents. A constraint, is the corporal or private must recount the use of the bullets, if fired. The insurgents know this. Thus, shooting countless rounds of bullets into the air or the walls that shield soldiers and police, intimidates the security force personnel. There is mostly one outcome in such exchanges of fire. Only with reinforcement and extreme desperation the security forces can gain the upper hand in the battle. Such is not sustainable in a war of attrition. What should be routine routing of the insurgents has become the exception.

Criminals often have a field day police some have records of killing hundreds of police in their reigns of terror. Criminals, security forces can neither catch nor stop often suffer defeat at the hands of vigilante groups. Many police successes of catching criminals are in collaborations with non-state security persons.

The GON

President Buhari is the man responsible for the recent low of permissiveness towards terrorism and crime in Nigeria. This his attitude has deep roots in religion and ethnicity. How about his priority in national security? Wiser and more competent leaders know that when rot takes hold in the land uncontrolled, it spreads and deepens spread. Tears.

Some may question the grounds arms manufacturers use to deny Nigeria weapons of security in desperate times. What a question! We agree the embargo of sales of weapons to Nigeria ties the GON’s hands. But it has itself to blame for misusing the weapons in the first place and ethnic impunity in the second.

Furthermore, the engineering and perpetuation of corruption by the government is to blame. The GON has found it expedient to pay civil servants’ small salaries. The logic behind such a depressing policy is cost avoidance. As such, the GON encourages civil servants to make up for the shortfall in their salaries by taking bribes from the public.

Hence, deep in the Nigerian psyche are the persuasions, “No one relies on salary alone,” and “Where a person works, he chops.” Or “There is nothing wrong with chopping but chop small.” Some security personnel claim they too must chop and enjoy. They need to eat well, take care of their families adequately, pay children school at good schools, drive cares, build houses, and enjoy in a little in the country Nigeria says is so sweet. Are the rank and file of Nigeria’s security agents to be denied living wages from legitimate sources.

Thus, the professionalism of security personnel suffers because of corruption. The corruption that denies them what the need to be professional. Alas, the public must bear the brunt of such a harmful inadequacy in society. Insecurity, thus, prevails. Remarkably, traditional hunters can deal with all manner of insurgents. Are hunters more competent than the Nigerian army in warfare? Bianimikaley!

The Security Personnel

Now, imagine giving guns and bullets to uniformed personnel who the government underpays by a large margin and live in squalid quarters. Weapons have forever by a means to an income. What an eyesore to see mobile police and soldiers at checkpoints with guns but wearing plastic slippers. And collecting bribes from any commercial vehicle or bike that approaches them. That is the fate of junior security personnel. The personnel must account for the fourteen bullet rations we mentioned above for, if used. Why?

Military and police personnel are notorious for selling arms and bullets to criminals. Audits of arms recovered from insurgents and criminals often expose this fact. Security personnel even engage in violent crime for money’s sake. Hunger pushes security agents to arm, abet, join, and free criminals and terrorists.” If na you nko?” “Who is not corrupt in Nigeria?” “Na wetin my oga send me I go do,” The police and soldiers ask in their defence.

Hunger makes criminals of decent men and women.

Nevertheless, is the tight rationing of bullets against even insurgents a rational answer to the problem? The Nigerian security agents would rather use those bullets to get themselves to safety than fight to the death. Let’s be real. The security personnel are not to blame, though.

The wives of NCO soldiers often warn their husbands before they go on security operations. “Do not fight and kill yourself for the suffer we live in. The petty trade I do will not survive me and the children,” the wives warn. Who can criticise them for saying such? If a soldier dies, his salary only continues for 90 more days, then it stops. Finish! The widow and children have 90 days to leave the military living quarters. Such is a common and tearful occurrence in army and police barracks.

Still, the GON cuts training and equipment budgets yearly. If The GON votes allocations of funds for military training and equipment, ministers of defence, national security advisers, top brass military officers steal the money. The military’s capabilities remain most deficient despite a change of government led by a retired general for over seven years.

So, we must take the poverty of low incomes, non-existent posthumous compensation, and low morale of security personnel and a better equipped enemy into consideration. Security personnel in Nigeria, NCOs most of all, no longer see security as their duty. They must survive and even prosper by other means though keep their jobs.

Soldiering and policing are very serious businesses. Without strong national security, security personnel suffer handicap.  Only proper funding, proper insurance, good, pay, and sufficient newest equipment, and better training security personnel can provide Nigeria and Nigerians live with peace, order, and security. Instead, the GON steals from the security forces to the point of expiry?

Do the Owners of Nigeria think their venality and mediocrity are sufficient excuses to let national security expire? Ask them. They will not answer because they don’t care!!!!!!!!!

Grimot Nane