ANAMBRA, SOLUDO AND SECURITY CHALLENGES

 Pat Onukwuli canvasses transparency in security operations

Anambra State, like many states in Nigeria today, has been enmeshed in serious security challenges. Since the middle of 2021, there has been an increase in protests and demonstrations in Southeast Nigeria part of which was the Mondays “Sit at Home” protests coupled with several attacks and targeted killings, especially of law enforcement personnel.

 Hoodlums and criminal elements described as “unknown gunmen” have continued to wreak havoc in Anambra and its environs. These marauders have been burning down public buildings, killing, maiming, and thoughtlessly kidnapping scores of innocent citizens. The height being the gruesome murder and beheading of Hon. Okechukwu Okoye, member representing Aguata II State Constituency in Anambra State House of Assembly.

Number one priority of any government should be security. Security includes protection of societal fabric, and safety of citizens’ lives and property. The state should protect people against malicious threats and guarantee a secure environment. Security is critical because it affects all aspects of economic and social development. Security is a sine-qua-non to the realisation of human rights. Peace and security are often used to imply a synergy or complementary condition that is absent, when violence and conflict pervade a society. According to the revered Nelson Mandela, safety and security do not just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. 

Accordingly, quality of security provided is a deliberate choice by the state. Prof. Chukwuma Soludo at his inauguration as Governor on March 17, 2022,  pledged that eradicating insecurity in Anambra was going to be top priority of his government.

 Towards the realisation of this, he made moves to settle warring factions, offered amnesty to repentant proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) members, and made offers to unite all stakeholders to foster developments. 

He went on to declare full-scale battle against the so-called unknown gunmen and other criminal elements. He put together a Joint Security Taskforce comprising the Nigerian Army, Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), and local Vigilantes to rid the state of these undesirable elements. These security measures put in place by his administration have been recording some measures of success, especially within Anambra South Senatorial Zone where there is dusk to dawn restrictions in most Local Government Areas. 

Several nefarious camps within the area alleged to be belonging to these killers are said to have been destroyed. Anambra Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, recently in an interview said that the Joint Security Task force is making rapid progress. According to him about nine shrines used by these gunmen and arsonists to force natives into oath taking have also been destroyed and such natives, who act as informants to the gunmen under police custody. 

Ostensibly, in the face of, these successes recorded by the Joint Security Taskforce, it would be difficult to criticise their operations. However, restoration of peace and security should not be an end in itself, rather a means to an end. There must be due process and ethical rules of engagement. Operations of these security agencies must be transparent. Any case of extra-judicial killing must be investigated, and appropriate punishment meted out to any perpetrator no matter how highly placed. This is the only way to safeguard public confidence in their operations. 

These agencies must adopt security delivery by consent. They should derive their legitimacy through public confidence rather than sheer brute force. Well-meaning individuals and citizens should only be frightened of hoodlums and not security taskforces created by the state and funded by taxpayers’ money. If the government and its security agencies cannot be criticised for avoidable deaths then, what is the point of democracy? The pains and anger resulting from the extra-judicial killing of one Uchenna Udoh (Akanka) in Abatete on Monday June 20, 2022, by members of the Anambra State Joint Security Taskforce based at Ogidi is still very palpable in Abatete community. It was said that the young Udo was dressed in black attire and looked like an unknown gunman. He was chased by the members of the Taskforce and he ran for almost half a kilometer for his dear life.  He was said to have run into someone’s premises and lay prostrate before the security team caught up with him and fatally shot him.

This has since provoked anger and pain in his friends, family, compatriots and indeed any person with a feel of humanity. The question is why fatally shoot an unarmed person, who is already lying prostrate? Is the Joint Security Taskforce’s modus operandi shoot to kill or shoot to maim or shoot to put out of action? This also raises concern about the training, doctrine and professionalism of members of the Joint Security Taskforce. Indeed, Soludo should hear about this and take necessary action to restore the damaged faith and confidence of sympathisers and well-wishers. There should also be propitiation and compensation for this singular killing. It is still early in the day for Soludo, as his administration would mark only 100 days in office by Saturday, June 25, 2022. 

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Notwithstanding that the wind may be on his sail with his recent successes with security of life and property,  he should not overlook this indiscretion by security taskforce. He must act for it is the bright day that brings forth the adder. Though his is not too enviable a position because if he applies too much pressure there be uproar and protest, and if he does little he will be accused of docility and passivity. But the buck stops on his table and he should strive for a balance.

Fortuitously, he has repeated in various fora that he willingly applied for the governance of Anambra State, and he is happy governing. In so doing, he should ensure that lives are protected no matter how lowly. He must not forget John Locke’s political philosophy which opines that all persons are endowed with natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Lockeanism leads to a more open approach to state-building rather than absolutism, where control of the state is left in hands of few individuals. He should, therefore, guard against possible descent into Hobbesian state where citizens are only safe if they comply with absolute commands and life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Salus, in ancient Rome, was the goddess of security and safety. She publicly and privately epitomised security, prosperity and well-being of both individual and state. Oxford Classical Dictionary insists that Salus had safety, salvation, and welfare under her care, thereby weaving safety and welfare to security. In other words, complete security encompasses health, safety, happiness and prosperity, well-being in any respect. 

Section 33 (1) under Chapter IV Fundamental Rights of the 1999 Constitution provides that every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria. Peace and security are an essential factor of human life, which is sacrosanct. Finally, Nelson Mandela again contends that the state owes children, the youth and the most vulnerable citizens in society, a life free of violence and fear. May lives remain sacrosanct in these perilous times.

Dr. Onukwuli

writes from patonukwuli2003@yahoo.co.uk