Pulling Back Nigeria from the Precipice

Posted By Adoga Michael Oyi


Pulling Back Nigeria from the Precipice
For me, the biggest sin the Buhari administration has committed against this beautiful country is its blossoming seed of division. This country has never been this divided. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was apt when he remarked in August 2016 that, “at no time in our history, except probably during the civil war, has Nigeria been so fractured in the feeling of oneness and belongingness by the citizenry.” Unfortunately, things have gone from bad to worse. Brothers are rising against brothers. There is so much hatred in our beautiful country because President Buhari wittingly set his clan against the rest of the country. For example, he brazenly tells the rest of the country to surrender their lands to his kinsmen for grazing in this modern era of ranching. Our President’s clannishness is frightening. The most terrifying is about the leadership of our security agencies.
I often shed tears whenever it dawns on me that almost 100 per cent of the heads of our security agencies are from just one sub-section of this country. I cringe each time I look at the list. Let’s go: Director-General, Department of State Security Services, Lawal Daura; National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno; Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Burutai; Chief of Air Staff, Sadique Abubakar; Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Retired Colonel Hameed Ali; Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Mustapha Abdallah; Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Mohammed Babandede; Chief of Defence Intelligence, AVM Mohammed Usman; Commandant, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Abdullahi Muhammadu; Inspector General of Police, Idris Abubakar; Director General, National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Rufai Abubakar; Minister of Defence, Mansur Mohammed Dan Ali, Minister for Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau; Controller General of the Nigeria Prison Service, Ja’afaru Ahmed.
Mr. President, how does this list smell? Does it smell pan-Nigeria? It is bad enough that they are all from the north. It is even worse that they are all Muslims. In a country where religion remains an issue, concentrating the security apparatus in the hands of one tribe and one religious group is a betrayal of trust of those Christians and southerners who voted for you and an affront on our constitution. Catholic bishops have repeatedly stated that these lopsided appointments into key security positions had created a sense of a loss of belonging in many parts of the country, hence the constant cries of marginalisation, agitation for secession and calls for restructuring. For me, this is the main reason killings and abductions across our country have persisted. Our biased security chiefs simply look the other way while the killings persist.
This is why Fulani militias persistently pummel the rest of the country despite Buhari’s avowal to stop the killings. On Tuesday, Fulani militias resumed their reign of terror in Benue by killing two people along the Naka/Makurdi Road while they were returning from the burial of the Catholic priests and 17 parishioners killed earlier by herdsmen. The deceased, riding on a motorcycle, were ambushed and slaughtered by the herdsmen. Naka/Makurdi road has been abandoned for a long time due to the negative activities of herdsmen along this federal highway. Governor Samuel Ortom confirmed these recent killings while receiving in audience the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, saying “Killing is still ongoing. Just on Tuesday, two people returning from the burial were killed.”
The ineptitude of the security chiefs has also exposed states in the North-west to attacks by bandits. Just on Tuesday, bandits returned to Zurmi Local Government Area of Zamfara State where the home of the Commissioner of Youths, Sports and Skills Acquisition, Abdullahi Gurbin, in Gurbin Bore village was attacked. Thereafter, they abducted his wife, three children and three other relatives.
Juxtapose all these with the vote of confidence President Buhari passed on the army chief, Tukur Buratai last Thursday and you will agree that something is clearly wrong somewhere. This vote of confidence is preposterous despite the glaring ineptitude and obvious bias of our security chiefs. This was what influenced the protests this week by Catholics across the country.
Alfred Adewale Martins, Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, remarked: “The central message of the protest is to stop killings in Nigeria; call on the federal government to be alive to its duties of protecting lives and properties and set agenda for true national discourse among others.
“People today feel a sense of helplessness and hopelessness in their homes especially when the signal they are getting is that they do not have enough personnel to secure every inch of this nation. We ought to have intelligence agencies that will act to prevent attacks and to nip the attacks in the bud.
“Our sorrows have been compounded by the fact that no one has been held responsible, no one convicted for the murder and destruction that has turned responsible people into internally displaced person. We urge the president to intervene in this problem in a more divisive way in order to save the country from tribal or religious war; we say all of these with due sense of patriotism for our nation Nigeria, because we believe in the strength and unity of Nigeria.”
For the Cardinal of the Abuja Catholic Diocese, John Onaiyekan, Nigeria is in a state of emergency and well-meaning Nigerians must unite in fighting “the great evil that had befallen the country.” He added that if murderers were allowed to continue killing, “it would come to a time when people will begin to use other means of self-defence.”