By Dr. Samuel Olufemi Jenfa
Security in Nigeria has remained a serious challenge to our nation which has adversely affected our economy. Unregulated movement of weapons and arms have been attributed to be responsible by non state actors. It is disturbing to observe how banditry emerged into our country to destroy our economy.
It is impossible for one man in person of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to fight against the menace made up of Boko Haram and other notorious militias who have been killing, maiming people in rural areas and carrying out ambushes on the highway since 2011 to date. They have been engaging in kidnapping and collection of ransome from their victims. They are illegally in control of gold mines and other mineral resources as such, financing their deadly trade purchased from internal and international agents through these means.
However, this phenomenon has been a serious cause of concern to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and efforts have been upped tremendously to restore peace and confidence to our nation with the support of countries like Russia. These satanic gangs have penetrated into many regions in Nigeria and their tents cannot be easily delineated except through high intelligence network by the military. Nefarious activities of sponsors of these heinous crimes have not helped matter having brought them into our society for their personal political gain.
As part of measures to forestall this menace, there is the need for all stakeholders including traditional rulers, religious leaders, governors, and leaders of security agents to come together in one voice with the President and bring the security threat challenging our nation to an expected end once and for all.
The criminal activities we suffer from the hand of bandits dating back to 2011 have resulted into unimaginable loss of lives across all regions but, prevalent in the North, particularly the Northwest as their base for attracting the gangs with deadly weapons from the nation’s porous borders.
All stakeholders including religious leaders should work together in order to eliminate sectarianism as a direct measure to bring peace to our nation. Perhaps, this might prick the conscience of these gangs by form of reorientation to respect and accord dignity to Nigerians with their faith and cultural background. Our national policy on this matter should be one that will enact enforceable laws and regulation.
Our recruitment exercises into the police and military facilities should be reviewed. These officers should be given high tech training, while they should be provided with high tech crime fighting equipments. Bad eggs in all police and the military formations should be weeded out.
Building up our economy should be a priority as being advocated by our President during most of his foreign tours and this requires huge budget. This is achievable through discipline as well as support from well meaning nations such as United Kingdom and others. Since security is not an exclusive duty of the president, all stakeholders should team up with President Tinubu on this onerous task of ensuring peace and tranquility in our land and put an end to sectarianism which is mainly for political and personal economical gains.
Having said that lessons must have been learnt from the origin of these deadly groups as the cause stemmed from environmental decline with scarcity of water for farming, together with the neglect of arable land, social exclusion that resulted to large scale poverty, long years of unemployment, particularly in the North.
Social exclusion that brought about banditry can be addressed at the local level through community leaders by working with local government leaders, as the people are encouraged to prioritise their needs.
I am appealing to all the key players in our economy from various quarters including manufacturers, business men, political leaders and other leaders of thought to earnestly support the current administration of President Tinubu on the efforts to build and reform our economy and make it sustainable that will bring back the glory of Nigeria and make the issue of insecurity and banditry a thing of the past for sake of posterity. Nigeria belongs to us all and there’s no country like Nigeria.
By Dr. Samuel Olufemi Jenfa, the Chairman of SOWENON, a Non-Government Organization (NGO)
