Dogara: Nigeria Becoming Ungoverned Space

• Expresses grave concern about post-2023 elections
• Urges leaders across divides to unite against insecurity

James Sowole in Akure

A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara yesterday warned that ungoverned spaces were becoming prevalent in Nigeria with the growing inability of the federal government to exert coercive power or at best maintain sporadic presence in different parts of the federation.

Dogara gave the warning at the 10th convocation of Achievers University, Owo City, Ondo State, noting that Nigeria “is at war against itself.”

Dogara, the Chancellor of the university, also expressed grave concern for the 2023 general elections even as he challenged political leaders to look beyond 2023, work together against divisive tendencies and rescue the country from the precipice of collapse.

At the convocation, the former speaker lamented the seemingly intractable security challenges in the country, warning that no part of the country was secured again.

While he decried the spate of insecurity in different geo-political zones constituting the federation, Dogara asked President Muhammadu Buhari “to stop playing the ostrich or pretend that all is well with us and our country.”

Dogara said the Southwest and the Southeast, the two geopolitical zones that were once considered safe, “are fast becoming Nigeria’s new zones of instability.

“Added to this is the long list of other protracted conflicts, including but not limited to Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast that has left scores of people dead and millions displaced.

“We now have daily cases of banditry in the Northwest; piracy; organised crime in the South-south and farmer herder clashes in much of the rest of the country,” he said with concern for the future of the country.

Dogara noted that the problem of ungoverned spaces “is prevalent in Nigeria where the government has lost the capacity to exert coercive power or at best maintains sporadic or weak presence.

“We now leave vast forested landscapes across the country for terrorists, bandits and sundry criminal cartels to use as sanctuaries and establish operational bases.”

He said there was a strong correlation between insecurity and 33.33% unemployment rate, epileptic economic growth, overwhelmed security agencies coupled with weak institutional capacity within the security agencies; extreme inequality cum poverty and citizens alienation from the government.

Dogara cited the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), which ranked Nigeria the third-most terrorised country in the world based on the report released on
November 27, 2020,

With this painted scenario, he said: “We can no longer play the ostrich or pretend that all is well with us and our country. We must say it as it is Nigeria is at war with itself.

“It is like all roads lead to Golgotha. The dam has broken and we have reached an inflection point. These are events that must change the way we think and act in order to walk Nigeria back from the precipice,” Dogara spoke with grave concern.

He noted that something “has been fundamentally wrong with Nigeria which we have failed to cure,” saying experts had linked insecurity in the country “to government’s failure or lack of capacity to deliver public services or basic needs of the people.”

He explained that this lapse “creates a pool of frustrated people who are easily ignited by any event to be violent. Also, inequality in appointment and distribution of public utilities create a perception of marginalisation by a section of the people, especially the youth, who have a sense of disaffection and/or resentment.”

He, thus, said the inability of the nation’s security forces “to tackle insecurity led to the proliferation of vigilante and zonal security outfits. Historically, the challenge with these outfits is that they have not worked.

“As it has always been the case in so many communities and nations that promote those outfits, they will soon degenerate into lucrative criminal cartels themselves.

“Lack of training will result in extra-judicial killings. Some of us who have welcomed them as saviours will sooner than later start condemning them for their brinkmanship and lack of transparency.

“History is replete with disturbing anecdotes on the impossible necessity of vigilantes. Be that as it may, we must move forward as a nation. Stemming the tide of insecurity in Nigeria requires all hands to be on deck.

“We must all be involved. All Nigerians should consider themselves stakeholders if the war against insecurity must be won,” the former speaker recommended.

Dogara also spoke about the 2023 general election, urging Nigerians to look beyond the next general election.

He said: “Some pundits have posited that Nigeria may not exist by 2023 because of merchants of violence or conflict entrepreneurs.

“This should not scare us. But what scares me is post-2023 if we get it all wrong. What is on the 2023 ballot is Nigeria itself. We need a team whose pedigree must match their rhetoric for unity, peace and progress.

“Our most immediate challenge now is to bring our disparate peoples together and pull down our barriers. Otherwise we cannot build. Issues of development, although absolutely important, are not the most immediate.

“If we dare get it all wrong in 2023, we would have succeeded in hastening the days of the first four – the famous horsemen of the apocalypse on ourselves days, that will be marked by conquest, war, famine and death.”