State of Emergency: Senate re-echoes Naija Times’ position on insecurity

THE Senate today re-echoed Naija Times‘ position in one of its editorials on how to tackle the spate of insecurity rocking the country by urging President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a “state of emergency” on security without delay. The upper chamber made the call during its plenary in response to today’s abduction of staff and students of Government Science Secondary School, Kagara, Niger State.

Two months earlier, Naija Times had called on the Federal Government to thread the same path in its editorial published on December 13, 2020, titled,  “Insecurity: Deal with the problem, head-on.” The editorial identified the causes of the problem and offered solutions. In identifying the key issues responsible for the widespread insecurity, the editorial stated: “Several factors, mostly political, religious, social and economic, account for the astronomical progression of violent crimes and general insecurity across the country.

“For too long, the ruling class in Nigeria failed to adhere to the social contract of holding political power in trust for the people and providing their basis needs. The state as an organic political entity failed to make education and public infrastructure readily accessible to the people.

“The failure of governance created a class of untrained and unemployable citizens who have now become a pool from where vested interests and undesirable elements find easy recruits for use in their nefarious activities.”

Meanwhile, the editorial offered the following recommendations: “To address the very worrisome situation, activities of ‘crisis entrepreneurs’ must be checked. Stories of fraudulent handling of funds and relief materials meant for tackling the insurgency and violent crimes are commonplace — perpetrators must be fished out and dealt with if it must cease.

“Sponsors of conflicts and promoters of the country’s war economy make it impossible for Nigeria’s military to defeat the terrorists who are having a field day because of their selfish interests. They must also be identified and brought to book. Arms and food suppliers that keep the camps of the insurgents active must be identified and stopped. Government should adopt discreet intelligence to fish out all those whose activities feed the insurgents, and take appropriate action.

“The different security agencies involved in prosecuting the war must carry out their activities with a common sense of purpose. They should share credible and useful intelligence and fight as a team. The attendant issues of corruption, policy inconsistencies and lack of cohesion or proper co-ordination among the various security agencies must be tackled head-on.

“Also, Nigerians must see the war against insurgency and other violent crimes as a collective task, by helping the relevant agencies with useful information and by exposing those profiting from the crisis.

It added that “It is high time a nationwide state of emergency is declared on insecurity.”

One of the recommendations of the Senate in its first plenary on February 7, 2021 also supported Naija Times‘ position in the same editorial. The Senate had urged the Federal Government to “review the ECOWAS Protocol of free movement to checkmate the infiltration of criminal elements into Nigeria.”

Naija Times had called on the Buhari administration to use its influence in the Economic Community of West African States to tackle the cankerworm of insecurity. The editorial recommended the following action: “Government should leverage its “Big Brother” status in the West African sub-region and work with our neighbours like Niger, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Cameroon with similar security challenges to fashion out a co-ordinated strategy that would see an end to the onslaught of terrorist elements and bandits, especially in the northern part of the country.

“It is an irony of fate that Nigeria which fought and brought peace to Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s as leader of ECOMOG, the military arm of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), is finding it difficult to liberate itself from the claws of insurgents and violent criminals. Given the transnational nature of terrorism and banditry, it would not be out of place to call on government to seek external assistance, where necessary, to tackle the menace.”

In yet another Naija Times editorial published on January 31, 2021 to set agenda for the new service chiefs over escalating insecurity in the country, the following recommendations were also made: “Nigeria urgently needs a Sustainable National Security Stabilisation Action Plan (SUNSSAP) that outlines a holistic reform and modernisation of the of the country’s security operations, to bring it up to speed with global best practices in security management.

“The plan should spell out a national, regional and continental collaborative framework of action that will comprehensively and decisively address security challenges at all levels. This should involve all the heads of strategic military and intelligence services, the ministries and agencies performing oversight responsibilities, the National Security Adviser (NSA) as well as relevant and knowledgeable stakeholders outside the key military and intelligence formations across the country.”

Both editorials made a strong case for the Buhari administration to be more creative in tackling the security crisis in the country. And now that the National Assembly has also declared its position in the matter, it should be taken seriously.