STEMMING INSECURITY IN THE SOUTHEAST

All the critical stakeholders must work together to curb the security excesses

Worried by the widespread insecurity in the region, the Southeast Governors’ Forum last week hurriedly convened a meeting in Enugu and agreed to set up a 24-hour joint patrol in all major highways within the zone. Forum chairman and Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi who read the communique after the meeting decried the incessant kidnappings and ‘wanton killings’ in the zone.  Given the threat to disrupt the 2023 general election in the zone, we can understand why the governors are suddenly concerned about the problem. But only few people take their commitment seriously.

In the past three years, the security picture in the Southeast has been very troubling. Hoodlums masquerading as ‘unknown gunmen’ have killed hundreds of people, including personnel of the army, police civil defence and civilians. Dozens of these innocent victims were summarily executed on the street. Facilities belonging to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), security agencies, in addition to private property, have also been attacked and destroyed. In the wake of the upsurge in crisis, the five governors hurriedly met and announced the formation of ‘Ebubeagu’, a regional security outfit. But the chairman, Brigadier General Obi Umahi (rtd) was soon to resign for lack of attention to the organisation. His committee was not only starved of funds, it operated for two years without an office.    

In the absence of any serious containment measures, criminals seized the zone by the jugular while others like the so-called Eastern Security Network (ESN) spread their campaign of terror under the pretext of working for the release of the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu. In the process, the entire five states in the zone were converted into a human abattoir. And in one of the most callous murder incidents last May, a pregnant woman was killed in cold blood together with her four children at Isulo in Orumba North local government area of Anambra State. That bestial killing nearly exposed our national delicate fault lines.

Today, socio-economic activities in the Southeast are systematically being laid to waste. An ill-conceived series of disruptions to social life, work, and business under the guise of ‘sit at home’ order is frequently imposed by IPOB and its brutal enforcers throughout the zone. Fear of rough vigilante enforcement of these orders has led to ruinous impact on the domestic economy. At his inauguration earlier in the year, Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo put the situation in proper context when he lamented that “a significant part of our state economy is powered by artisans, Keke drivers, vulcanisers, hairdressers, cart pushers, petty traders, bricklayers, women frying Akara, and all those who depend upon daily toil and sweat to feed their families.” Yet, every day there is a sit-at-home, according to Soludo, “these poor masses lose an estimated N19.6 billion in Anambra alone.” Besides, due to the protracted breakdown of law and order, businesses are relocating outside the region while the queue of unemployment is lengthening.

Meanwhile, as bad as the situation is, there are still apparent divisions among the critical stakeholders. In fact, the mutual suspicion among the governors has in itself become a source of insecurity. They have also failed to place the economic future of the region and general peace and order above their personal political interests. Two governors whose states feature prominently as centres of lawlessness and human carnage were absent at the Enugu meeting. That does not demonstrate seriousness in tackling a major problem. 

To stem the insecurity crisis in the zone, all critical stakeholders must work together. But the ultimate responsibility lies with the federal government that should come out with a winning strategy to deal with this lingering security crisis. While a combined technique of intelligence and law enforcement may help in containing the resurgence of criminality, it is also perhaps appropriate, like the governors suggested, to look beyond the legal to the political in resolving the Nnamdi Kanu conundrum. But the resolution to mount patrols in the zone without a unified enforcement outfit may end up placing freelance state authorised criminal enforcers on the highways. 

We urge the governors to have a rethink on this strategy that may compound the problem they are trying to solve.