In the last two months or so, the attention of this column has remained on issues that make development so very difficult. During the interventions, adequate focus was given to very important factors in the building of a modern nation state. Apart from procurement of foreign loans, virtually every other issue relating to development received detailed attention. Security topped the matters.
We looked into the matter more than any other issue and the reason is obvious. No matter how great the vision and energy applied to pursuing it, without a peaceful atmosphere, without stability everything will remain at ground zero. So, as would be expected, politics and security occupied more time. Politics because behind every great enterprise is the human element. Organization is vital.
This draws from the human component. Where the character quotient of the ruling class isn›t excellent, if they jettison morality and keep sound principles aside, or make light of rule of life, especially equality before the law, they provoke extraneous variables that end up muddling everything. They raise distortions, and stagnation become inevitable outcome. In some instances society can progress further even into retrogression, tension, conflict and war. We have seen these happen in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and currently in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Take a look at our country, do a very objective review and see if you can find traces of the above trends rearing up their heads. We trust your observations may throw very disturbing findings and that perhaps is why we are making a return to the very important question of national security, especially against the summit on national security organized in Abuja last week by the House of Representatives and attended by such eminent personalities like former President Goodluck Jonathan, onetime military head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives Ben Kalu and Inspector General of Police, IGP, represented by one of his very top officers.
The police authorities spoke on the very important matter of state police and in an outright manner told the citizens the idea wasn›t relevant at least for now. Nigeria, they said, wasn›t ripe for state police. The other points they made to back up their position include possibility of abuse by state governors, lack of finance and possibility of rise in ethnic tension. President Jonathan was all out for state police but the police position gained prominence. It raised critical questions among them if the police as an agency should have a say on the matter especially after the president had publicly expressed a direction. It threw a near anti-climax from the police end.
It beat a hasty, very unprofessional retreat: the force had to quickly disown her representative to the summit. It branded the position personal opinion of officer. Was the development a surprise? No, not at all. Acting before thinking has long become a national culture and policy. Double standing and speaking have become cherished political “virtues” and tools. Our leadership class excel in the act of saying what they don’t mean and meaning what they won’t let the people know.
They pursue narrow interest at the expense of growth and well being. It won’t matter to them the harm their unpatriotic acts impose on the development process. They don’t care. It is a case of dissonance in government administrative procedures. Each department interpreting policies as they deem fit. Some even enunciate their own policy directions. Should an agency take a position contrary to that put forward by the President or governor as the case may be?
Power management protocol. What does it teach? Does it prescribe independent actions by segments of government? Truth is the ugly trend of ministries and departments working at cross purposes didn’t start with the current mix up. It has been with us for a very long time. It was worst during the General Muhammadu Buhari administration. The President wasn’t a hands-on leader. So, many of his aides who had vintage positions spoke differently from what the office of the President and his executive council had to say, said or had in mind. They created power zones akin to separate power kingdoms for themselves. This administrative style we found out created far more problems.
At some point it became very difficult to distinguish who actually ran the government between the President, his henchmen and the security agencies. Each had strong but very divergent positions on the way to go on many critical national issues and challenges. Of course, it created its many new problems for a system that was already on the boil. On the police turnaround from the position its very high officer expressed, it was no personal opinion as they turned round to make the officer admit, it was the position of the top brass of the force.
The IGP who was duly invited to such a Grade A summit and who indeed accepted the invite upon which ground he sent a very top officer to represent him, could not have despatched the representative without telling him what to say or give him a written position vetted by him. He changed his mind when the protocol mix was highlighted and it became a big issue. In running a government, views and opinions of subordinates should be subsumed to the publicly expressed position of the either the President or Governor or still the executive council as the case may be.
When a President speaks even if he spoke out of order, the nation has spoken. This is why circumspection is a big virtue in governance. Great leadership includes ability to think and think through before going public. A good President would review his position before going public, for once he does it becomes a policy position. The expressed position of the Inspector General of Police obviously ran very contrary to the publicly posited intention of Mr President on the matter. The president had convened a national council meeting where it was agreed state policing has been accepted and what remained was for a committee of very knowledgeable citizens to be constituted to work out finer details of its operations.
On this score the IGP›s outburst appears like mutiny, a rebellion. He realized the consequences of what was done and that motivated the untidy pull back we saw from the police few hours after her representative had spoken at the summit. The point having been made, it is very pertinent to briefly but in critical fashion x-ray the reasons the police gave for rejecting state policing. The police alluded to anticipated abuse by governors.
Given our experiences over the overbearing attitude of political office holders the point on face value may seem unassailable. But in reality it is a no issue. To begin with, if a problem can be foretold what it means is that it is solvable and very easily too. In fact, where a people are very serious to change negative fortune, matters arising from psychological malfunction are easiest to handle. A little rigour will throw up sustainable solutions. In this case job delineation can provide great answers.
State police can be dedicated to purely criminal matters. They can be barred from civil matters and arrest. And from providing private security services. Lawyers can draw from experiences elsewhere and give us laws relevant to peculiarities. Simple matter. Are our governors and would be ones aliens? The answer is no. Don’t everyone feel the heat of insecurity? We all do.
Is it the desire of anyone to have the situation remain the way it is.
Again, the answer is no except for the few psychopaths in our midst. In a society, everyone can’t be on the same level of sanity, that is a given. But the beauty of government is the power to rein in the few on the wrong path. There is a strong belief insecurity has become a rich industry. This cannot be allowed to continue. Our elite and indeed everyone is aware that there is virtually nothing we can do about sustainable development if the current levels of insecurity is allowed to fester and multiply in dimensions.? Truth is, we want to see a change today, not tomorrow.
The point is about lack of about finances. It is not about finance, it should be far more about priorities. Between security and social infrastructure which should come first? So much issue, fuss has been made about lack of money and inability to pay salaries by some states. President or governor who can›t pay salaries ought to be forced to resign. Perhaps we should start thinking about a law in this direction since we have a very passive citizenry.
If leaders can›t generate funds to take care of wages what reasons do they have to remain in office? By the way, we turned bureaucracy to welfare centres. We don’t have money to pay salaries but states and the federal government are throwing trillions to do phoney road construction all over. Currently we are engaged in building a coastal highway from Lagos to Calabar at a cost not even the Minister in charge has definitive figures but which we have been told will be in the trillions range.
Note the East-West highway has been under construction since the 70s and never concluded. We have the Shagamu highway through Onitsha to go to Calabar, yet we want to break through the fringes of Atlantic Ocean to get to Calabar in 10 years time. Similar patterns run in states.
Any patriot will see it is no longer about lack of money but creative deployment of hard earned resources. We didn›t say scarce resources. Far from it. If resources were to be scarce the federal government won’t outside budgetary provision find N90 billion to subsidize pilgrimage that ought, in reality, to be a personal religious responsibility. The question of ethnic tension is one we know the truth but deliberately refuse to confront it head on.
We know factors that provoke ethnic tensions. Among them is wilful undertakings by members of the ruling class for narrow objectives. We would have loved to expatiate on this but it is not necessary, given space constraints.
Truth is we have developed a pattern where we fear to confront our challenges headlong as a result of various limited considerations. We don›t want to upset the terrible system, which favours a section and leaves out the far majority. We believe we should be suffering and trudging along terrible pathways. We see the distortions and dislocations but we still don’t care. We believe that time will make things right whereas time doesn’t alter a flawed process, it would rather multiple it. This has been our experience.
Our country is quite huge and lessons of history are clear: such a big enclave can›t, take note of the word «can›t» be run on uni-layer security arrangement. It has not worked and won’t work. If we insist we will keep having our hearts in our mouths. Many will sleep always with one eye open. It may grow to a point nobody will be able to even sleep because it will be too dangerous to do so. Nigeria is a federation. In a federal state things are segmented and this adds to provide checks and balances.
Our highways recently have virtually become impassable because of nefarious activities of hoodlums and terrorists. Some of us who took courage to run the roads in the past few days saw that the state has «managed» to take back the space from the felons. What did they do? Simply to mass the highway with troops. This is no real security.
Real security comes with dealing with the source of the deviancy. Going for the felons and bringing them to face the rigours of the law. This is not what we do. We often will choose the easy way out. Having police presence is good but would have been sustainable if the states and local governments assumed some responsibilities in this regard.
Very simple matter. The trouble with us in the country include turning simple matters complex. Everything is about partisan politics. This is bad. It is a terrible behaviour for one to chase rats when the house is on fire. Terrible behavior indeed!