Even more than his ineffectiveness, Nigeria’s minister of defence’s recent utterances give reasons for grave concern.

Four weeks ago, he called on Nigerians to defend themselves against the attacks for bandits. I do not know how to describe the weight of irresponsibility this utterances bear but it is worthy of a ponder.

For a man saddled with the overall responsibility of providing counsel to the president and coordinating the nations disparate security apparatus, the defence minister speaks at the highest level of government possible. His word is more or less law on this front. So when he says things like this, he  suggests that  government is no longer able to protect the people and spreads fear. More than that, suggestions like that calls for anarchy, where the rule of law is pushed to the background, self-help thrives- a jungle where might has become right. With this utterance, the minister precipitates the very opposite of the type of society he was appointed to assure.

Again, on Tuesday the defence minister hit the news when he said that Nigeria’s security was in a critical state. Of course, the minister was saying nothing new but as possibly the only person that is accountable to Nigerians and the issues of security after President Muhammadu Buhari, what is expected of him, is building the confidence in people rather than precipitating fear.  And coming just four weeks after he made another comment that drew criticism from Nigerians, the comment raise questions about whether his alarming remarks as defence minister are a function of the lack of understanding of the remit of his office, the incapacity to communicate appropriately or an attempt to pass a veiled message of government’s helplessness to the people. Thank God that from that same event, Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, served notice of the armed forces’ determination to quench every fire of violence and disaffection being lit across the country. That the defence minister made the above comment in his bid to covert the cooperation of every strata of society in the war against insecurity is not also lost on this writer, the point however is that a man of his office must be circumspect in his choice of words when saying anything with any remote chance of getting consumed by the general public. The job of a defence minister is much more about building the people’s confidence in the ability of government to protect. It is more about strategy, than talking, more about intelligence than breaking the threats of war on even those perceived to be perpetrating evil in the country. And the foregoing is one area where the minister has failed to prove his mettle and with that failure unwittingly created the Sunday Adeyemos’ and reawakened the Asari Dokubos and Nnamdi Kanus of this world.

One of the ways this country’s security apparatus has done is in allowing the wound of insecurity to fester to the extent that it has become a national problem. Enough has been said about how government’s irresponsibility allowed Boko Haram become some hydra headed monster- but Nigeria learnt nothing from that! There was a time when the problem of criminal Fulani herdsmen was restricted to a few states in the north west and north central part of the country, but government lived in denial until it became and entrenched and pervasive evil across the country. Rather than tackle the challenge head on like an emerging national emergency, efforts were concentrated on arguing whether those who attacked farms, murder their owners after raping their wives and burning down their communities were Fulani or not. A serious country treats crime and criminals dispassionately, but Nigerians create different ingredients for the same crime depending on which part of country the alleged criminals are from, so criminals get more emboldened and their boldness encourage otherwise lilly-livered people to join the trade, creating all sorts of opportunistic crimes that have turned our country into a colony where death, abductions and all sorts of crime are harvest daily.

We moved from arguing about what part of Nigeria these criminals came from to suggesting that they were aliens taking advantage of our porous borders and have now become unwitting victims of our prejudices. Question is, why did it take the intelligence agencies so long to realise this fact?

As bad as it, it is better when those who seem to make excuses for crime and criminals are ordinary citizens. When government is perceived, even if wrongly so, to condone criminals, it is unmitigated trouble for society. This is the impression that government has allowed Nigerians to go on with for a long time.  Over the years, arguments have been made by other parts of Nigeria as to the fact that not one herdsman has been arrested and prosecuted for alleged kidnapping in spite of all the bravado of the security forces, government has allowed this narrative develop a life of its own. This has created resentment across the country and diminished trust in government and caused the emergence of all sorts of opportunist, self-appointed advocates for the rights of all those perceived to be oppressed.

Another example of such seeming uneven handling of matters is the proscription of bodies like the The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Islamic Movement of Nigeria(IMN) were proscribed, yet no word has been spoken about the Fulani National Movement, FUNAM, which owned up to attempting to assassinate Benue State Governor,  Samuel Otorm on Sunday. FUNAM did not only claim to have made that attempt, it threatened that the lives of so many other Nigerians who may be have been speaking against the interest of its members were at risk! This security chief has not seen the need to advise the president to clamp down on that organisation, even if just for the effect of giving Nigerians a sense that something is going on.

This column raised concern about the effect of clamping down and suppressing dissent. In “Shiite crisis: Nigeria is playing with fire,” published on this page on November 1, 2018, I had written: “But Nigeria will be the bigger loser at the end of the day… what is more frightening is the IMN’s tendency to go underground and start a guerrilla warfare before long. This was pretty much the trajectory of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awatiwal-Jihad before it became the Boko Haram group. A group to which Nigeria has lost at least twenty thousand lives, with two million displaced and an estimated five million facing severe food shortages. How much of this type of internal strife a country can bear is best left to imagination…”

So, how come ordinary human beings see these things but those appointed to protect the country could not and can still not?

There is so much talk about the applying kinetic measures to quell these disaffections that are leading to secessionist sentiments. While that is okay, have we asked questions of how much these actions have helped since we embarked on them against Boko Haram over one decade back. Haven’t we continued to see an extension of these tendencies in spite of the billions that have been extended on warfare and military operations across the country?

I thought this should persuade managers of the country’s defence to pay much more emphasis on what they call non-kinetic measures. This should include rebuilding the confidence of the people in their country, taking measures to ensure that every part of the country gets their dues, that every Nigerian born has a sense of citizenship and that the grinding poverty in the country is passionately dealt with.

We should also fear about the future, with the level of mis-education and no education at all that Nigerian children currently experience. The current insecurity would be nothing compared to what is to come unless we invest in the children and the youth. Nigerian leaders, at the federal, state and local government levels, must come together, shun party differences and plan sustainable formal, informal and vocational education of the child depending on their talent. Just as the employment of youths must be a priority. Mr Magashi and those who work with him must realise, in case they don’t, that advising the President about sustainable peace and security of Nigeria include all of these and the decorum not to speak out of turn.

Adedokun tweets @niranadedokun