INSECURITY CHALLENGES IN NIGERIA: WAY OUT OF SEEMING DESPONDENCY (7)
Gbolahan Samuel Moronfolu
Solutions to the Menace of Cultism
Over the past two decades, various attempts have been made to deal with the problem of cultism. The various measures taken to address the spate of cultism in Nigerian tertiary institutions include the enactment of Decree 47 of
1989 that pronounced a number of year jail term for any cultist found guilty. Rivers State government made a law stipulating a ten-year jail term sentence without an option of fine for culprits of cultism. Also, the Federal Republic of Nigeria under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000 issued a three-month ultimatum to all vice-chancellors to eradicate cultism from the campuses. Some higher institutions also set up anti-cult groups consisting of the student body itself and some security agents to monitor and check the activities of cultists on campus.
Despite the various measures, it appears the proliferation of cult groups and their dastard acts continue unabated as there are allegations that some vice-chancellors were sponsoring cult activities in their universities to silence the voice of dissent. This appears not to augur well for a citadel of Learning.
Considering its metropolitan status, Lagos State has its own fair share of the nuisance of cultism. However, the government has been investing heavily in the beefing up of the State’s security architecture, just to ensure that cultists and other such reprehensible groups do not have a field day of terror on the society. Toward this end, the Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration has rebranded and repositioned the State’s special crime-bursting outfit, the Rapid Response Squad (RRS). Not only this, the administration donated security equipment worth N8.7b to the State Police Command. Similarly, the governor has signed the bill for the Prohibition of Unlawful Societies and Cultism of 2021 into law, which stipulates a 21-year jail term for convicted cultists in the State.
The State’s House of Assembly, in February 2021, passed the anti-cultism bill, which also stipulates 15-year jail term for anyone found guilty of abetting cultists and residents who willfully allow their property to be used as meeting points by cultists. The anti-cultism law repeals the Cultism (Prohibition) Law of 2007 (now Cap. C18, Laws of Lagos State of Nigeria, 2015) and provides for more stringent punitive measures, as well as makes its application all-encompassing and applicable to the general public, as against the restriction of the previous law to students of tertiary. According to the governor, the State had suffered the negative effects of unlawful societies and cultism. He, thus, stressed that the new law sought to make parents more responsible and show more interest in the upbringing of their children and wards to ensure that they do not become a burden to society. It must, however, be stressed that all the efforts of the government might not really achieve many results except every stakeholder in the society join hands with the government in the war against cultism.
The following are the suggested solutions to the menace of cultism in Nigeria tertiary institutions.
1. Government and non-governmental agencies should step up their campaigns against cultism and its destructive tendencies. The evil nature of cultism should be explained to young people in schools at all levels through sensitization, seminars and workshops. Through seminars, workshops, symposium, posters, handbills and public lectures, cultism may be effectively curtailed.
2. Parents should desist from being members of secret cults and also prevent their children from joining bad groups. Moral education should be re-introduced in all spheres of our lives and the decadent society should be spiritually reawakened. The parents, religious organizations and government are to work jointly on this measure. Parents should be more vigilant concerning the activities of their children within and outside the home.
3. There must be improved facilities and improved living conditions on campuses so as to minimize perceived strain in the social system which underlines cultism on the campuses.
4.Universities should be reorganized, funded and should be provided with games so as to make universities attractive, involving, so that youthful exuberances of students will find a rewarding outlet in competitive sports like football, athletics which could engage students in their spare times.
5. The authorities of higher institutions of learning must show more seriousness in their determination to stamp out cultism. They must brace up to the challenges of cultism, which has become one of the most potent evils of the recent time. It is very necessary for the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian universities to adopt a common and uniform approach to solving the problem of cultism. The issue of former cultists who sometimes return to universities as staff must be looked into.
6. Students who do not belong to cults can be organized into anti-cult vanguard to watch and report cult members to the university authorities or to law enforcement agents.
7. The school authorities must intensify armed patrol and surveillance on campuses. The current effort where students form vigilante groups to monitor cultists should be encouraged. Prompt action concerning cases of cultism is also a necessary condition as delay in taking actions against offenders worsens the situation. It is suggested that any member of the public, no matter how highly placed, linked with the activities of cultism in campus should be tracked down and brought to book.
It is therefore imperative on the part of the stakeholders in the university education (the churches, the mosques, parents, school administrators and the society at large) to synergize efforts at eradicating the menace before it destroys the whole educational system. Besides, government should be more aggressive in her quest to eradicate cultism in the tertiary institutions.
Other solutions likely to solve the insecurity challenge in Nigeria also include the following:
Leadership development- It is viewed that Nigeria will have to develop visionary leadership, a leadership that is detribalized such that it has at leadership positions only people who are able to inculcate in their people or followers, the idea of common citizenship as the transcendent factor among all Nigerians, no matter the tribe, gender, religion, economic and social status. In other words, it is imperative that we have leaders who would not be limited to championing the causes of their home state, tribe, or religious groups, but rather focused on deeds and pronouncements which convincingly and positively impact the entire citizenry of the federal republic”. The argument for this is that such leaders “will help to mold the contending ethnic and religious groups into harmony and help to remove the perceived mutual distrust among them. The process of developing visionary leadership can be challenging, but however, it can be overcome “by using institutions of the Nigerian constitution as a nursery ground to produce leaders with national outlook and with a missionary zeal to transform the nation”.
Good governance – Good governance is the panacea for the insecurity challenge in Nigeria. The war against insecurity would be won only by raising governance standards; that is, cultivating the culture of good governance where the government is responsible and accountable to the people. Security engagement cannot be separated from good governance. Many others have also linked security to the governance system. The general view is that peace and security are determined by good governance. However, good governance is a function of effective, visionary, transparent, trustworthy, and credible political leadership whose driving force is an improvement in the collective wellbeing of the citizens through well-conceived, effectively implemented economic policies and human development programs. The underlying principle of good governance is the focus on people as the ultimate objective of governance.
The Socio-Economic Development-This factor is strongly considered as the major key to peace and security in Nigeria. The challenge in solving the insecurity problem in Nigeria is to accelerate the pace of development. Development in this context consists of creating an economy with relevant social, economic, and physical infrastructure for business operations and industrial growth, to provide gainful employment, high-level education facilities, and medical care for the people.
Elimination of Corruption and Entrenchment of Social Justice – Corruption is viewed as the cog in the Nigerian wheel of progress and development. It is the bane of our society. It is both a social and economic monster. It is the cause of inequality and inequitable distribution of the nations’ wealth among its citizens, a situation that is the root cause of disaffection among Nigerians. It is theorized by many that fighting corruption and winning the war will bring about an egalitarian society, where fairness, social justice, and equal right for all will reign supreme; where rights will not be privileges for some people, and for others, privileges are their rights: where every Nigerian will be treated and accorded position not based on tribe and sect, but on merit defined in terms of the content of his character, mental capacity and ability to deliver; where there will be no discrimination.
Radical Change in Values – A paradigm shift of values from the current order has also been suggested and emphasized by many, considering the role of values in the governance system, leadership developmental goals, and behavior towards corruption. It is argued that except our values are right, we cannot get it right as a nation in all of the areas that we have itemized, and except we get it right in those areas, the people will continue to suffer deprivation and injustice which will cause dissatisfaction and disaffection and consequently create an insecure environment. To overcome insecurity there is a need for intelligence gathering and surveillance so that law enforcement agents could be proactive and reasonably predict potential crime with near-perfect accuracy rather than being reactive.
The menace of insecurity no doubt calls for a new approach that will be founded on credible intelligence gathering. Government must not only continue to engage the security personnel, but it must also, more than ever before, recognize the need to devote more attention to security intelligence, capacity building to meet the global best practice standard, and acquisition of modern technology.
There is also the need to modernize the security agencies with training, intelligence sharing, advanced technology, logistics, motivation, and change of orientation. This effort will enhance the operational capabilities of the Nigerian security agencies by identifying avenues that would enable them to respond appropriately to internal security challenges and other threats. In addition, there should be a complete overhaul of the security institutions in the country to reflect international standards of best practices so as to pre-empt these security breaches. The consistent pattern of post damage responses to national security has been attributed to the dearth of pre-emptive intelligence among security personnel.
There should be an institutionalized approach rather than the episodic and reactive response adopted by the government in the aftermath of attacks. In addition, the Government at all levels should not compromise in enforcing the law. Cases of corruption are not meant to be compromised, let alone adjourning them endlessly. The judiciary ought to have, at this stage in our development, evolved time scales for cases. There ought to have been a time to determine a cause; time to close that case; and time to deliver judgment and pass sentences. In Nigeria, cases that bother on corruption and insecurity have most often been compromised. Thus, the law is no longer acting as a deterrent. Our law enforcement agencies must therefore be incorruptible and fair. To ensure all this, there must be incentives, good conditions of service, and social security.
The formulation and effective implementation of policies and programs capable of addressing the root causes of insecurity in Nigeria is crucial, especially with regard to poverty; unemployment, environmental degradation, injustice, corruption, porous borders, and small arms proliferation. Therefore, efforts to tackle insecurity can only be effective if there is a robust combination of legislative and judicial interventions with government reforms that address some of the acute human security challenges confronting a vast majority of the population.
The insecurity challenge in Nigeria has become a formidable challenge for the Nigerian government and peoples. The governance challenges facing the polity have trickled into the society, resulting in moral decadence. The growing dissatisfaction, discomfort and distress within the larger society coupled with the unabating official corruption, high unemployment rate, economic crisis, pauperization of the masses, decaying infrastructure and a futile national integration project have heated up the socio-political environment.
Consequently, armed conflicts, terrorism, ethno-religious holocausts, kidnapping, political assassination and other violent crimes have become the theme of Nigerian social relations. The government has made efforts to contain the insecurity inferno raging in many spots in the country, but until the moral foundation on which the Nigerian state is revolves on is regenerated, Nigeria may be walking the precipice.
There is the need to revive and reinforce moral values and virtue ethics in the country and that the country should go a step further by codifying these values/principles so that Nigerians, small and old, can begin to imbibe these virtues to guide their conduct, behavior and social relations with others. First of all, government carries a moral burden to lead by example. Providing moral leadership that eschews evil, corruption, vices, inequity, injustice and wickedness will compel the people to model the character of their leaders and vice versa.
In addition, the democratic system in place must begin to deliver the needed social goods so as to improve the standard of living of Nigerians and deliver many citizens from the state of absolute poverty to which they have been subjected for a long while. Third, there is need to identify the moral values and ethical virtues that should guide the conduct and behavior of Nigerians. These values should be built on the respect for human life, the regard for human dignity and the right to life, liberty and security of the people; the freedom of worship, religion, thought and conscience; and the freedom of opinion.
Fourth, there should be a codification of the moral values and virtues the government and Nigerian peoples subscribe to for the good of the larger society. Fifth, government should plug all the holes through which scarce resources are been siphoned so as to free resources for national development and equipping of the military to fulfill its functions.
Lastly, there is need for a national conversation or dialogue where Nigerians can release their pent-up anger and frustration against the state and fashion out the blueprint for the engagement of all the component units that make up Nigeria. Paying lip-service to the matters of insecurity in Nigeria by government and its representatives is sitting on a time-bomb that may soon explode. Sustaining personal or regime security will not secure government or its representatives if this challenge is not nipped in the bud. The governance process must be erected on the pillars of moral values and virtues and the Nigerian people must be led by a moral leadership that will strive to secure the commitment and support of all citizens to make the Nigerian project a true success.
*Moronfolu is a seasoned security consultant with many years of security and policing experience. FELLOW, Fourth Estate Professional Society (FFPS), he has also partaken in peace keeping operations within and outside the country and has flair for general security education.
