DEALING WITH THE SEPARATISTS

The authorities must step back and think about how they could do things differently

In a week in which Mr Nnamdi Kanu of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was arrested abroad and repatriated to Nigeria to continue his trial for terrorism, treasonable felony, unlawful possession of firearms, among other charges, Mr Sunday Igboho, leader of ‘Oodua Nation’, is also on the run, after an attack on his Ibadan residence by agents of the Department of State Services (DSS). While we condemn the promoters of these groups that seem determined to disturb the peace of the country, we do not believe that the highhanded approach of the authorities is also helpful. Against the background of the death of an innocent girl yesterday during the civil protest in Lagos, we enjoin the security agencies to always ensure that minimum force is used to disperse protesters.

However, as we have also stated several times on this page, these ethnic agitators must understand that nobody is above the law. Whatever may be their legitimate political grievances, such can be channelled through their representatives in the National Assembly. But in as much as we condemn the recourse to blackmail as a weapon for seeking political or economic goals, it is troubling that security agencies are unwittingly escalating violence by their mode of operations.

The primary role of the security agencies is to carefully demarcate between democratic freedom and a clear descent into chaos that threatens us all. Since no responsible authority would tolerate a threat to national security, the DSS is right to go against individuals whose actions and utterances could breach the peace. While democracy entitles citizens to freedoms of expression and association, it is also true that every democracy has an obligation to mediate and modulate these freedoms to ensure the survival of the nation itself. Individuals or groups who fan ethno-religious tension should be dealt with in accordance to the law.

While we understand that building an inclusive and egalitarian society in a federal arrangement is always a work-in-progress, the security agencies—whose primary responsibility is the protection of national security through managing and deterring threats to the unity and peaceful co-existence of the country—are also becoming part of the problem. Not only do they discriminate in the choice of culprits in moments of crisis, but they are also never even-handed in the application of the law. Besides, in dealing with some of these deviant behaviours, agents of state cannot behave like licensed thugs. Invading a residence at night and shooting to kill cannot be a civilised way of restoring law and order in a democracy.

It is also important for the DSS to understand that some of these separatist agitations are not always self-driven. They sometimes erupt when signals in the political space dredge up buried subliminal impulses. In many ways therefore, the recent flourish of hateful and divisive utterances is primarily political. Certain subliminal impulses have been energised by the choices of this administration. Key federal appointments have followed a parochial track while the body language at the apex of power unfortunately reflects a basic reluctance to relate to Nigeria as a constitutional republic. Political jobbers all over the country have since taken the cue and hijacked the narratives. And we now have nearly as many separatist groups as there are known zones of discontent in the country.

To deal with the current challenge will go beyond the arrest and detention of some of these troublemakers. We also need a new conduct of leadership that is even-handed and inclusive so that citizens begin to hold government accountable for the things that unite us—education, health, employment, infrastructure, reasonable economic livelihood. It is the failure of governance and the irresponsibility of lazy politics that are at issue in the epidemic of hate and divisiveness currently on shameful display in Nigeria. The presidency must also begin to deal with these.