NIGERIA: TO MOVE FORWARD, WE MUST GO BACK

Joshua J. Omojuwa canvasses need to build a security architecture that involves the active participation of traditional rulers and their institutions

The most successful football teams in history are built around the “spine” of the team. The spine usually consists of four or five players in various positions who form the superstructure of the team. It is usually the goalkeeper, one or two defenders, one midfielder and an attacker. As the name indicates, the spine holds the team together. When you lose one or two of the other players to injuries, the team may not play at its full strength, but its technical identity and style need not change. However, if you lose one of the players that constitute the spine of the team, the entire team could collapse. For example, Arsenal losing defender, William Saliba to injury appeared to cost them more than when the same fate befell Gabriel Jesus. Also, as Pep Guardiola has shown, a great team is built from the back forward. Which is why he obsessed over buying ball-playing goalkeepers and defenders with the technical ability to play from the back.

No country can build prosperity without focusing on certain core areas: health care, education and national security to mention a few. However, national security is a sine qua non for development. Therefore the absence of national security – with the dimensions to corruption it has engendered – has been the bane of our national development. Since October 1st, 2010, when bombs exploded near Eagle Square in Abuja, followed by the deadlier bombing of the UN building in Abuja in August 2011, our leaders and elite have been unable to deal decisively with insecurity even though the north-east was already under siege for years prior.

Those threats changed our country for the worse. As citizens, our clamour changed from wanting a country that provided the basics, to avoiding being killed by terrorists. To combat the menace, our Defence budget ballooned from $1.5bn in 2009 to $4.7bn in 2021. Whilst the bombings and killings have largely reduced, our security challenges have remained and evolved.

Clearly, we must adopt better measures to resolve our security challenges. Throwing money at a problem will not fix it if the right strategy is not deployed. In my opinion, there is something to be learnt from British colonisation. The British took control of the different protectorates without overtly appearing to change their leadership. The kings remained in charge of their people (at least in the eyes of the people), while the kings paid obeisance to the British. Such was the effectiveness of indirect rule. It retained the power structure; a sort of B2B – Business to Business – engagement rather than a B2C (Business to Consumer) one.

The effect of the arrangement was that there was no apparent disruption to the traditional and social structure of the colonised societies. That helped the British maintain order. With amalgamation, things started to take a new form as a new way of leadership emerged, culminating in the first ever national elections in Nigeria in September 1923 – 100 years ago. Nigeria and other British colonies are yet to recover from the consequences of bringing these different empires and societies together under one national umbrella. 

Our ancestors who were used to living in a world where the king’s word was law, were forced to be citizens in a new order where some kings ultimately lost their thrones and were sent into exile with new kings who were made subject to the authority of local government chairpersons and governors. That disruption transmogrified the social and traditional structure of society and the effect is something that hasn’t been paid the needed attention.

These days, our traditional rulers are usually ignored and are only courted during elections or when their subjects run amok. To achieve lasting peace, we must develop a granular approach to national security. This approach includes effective and substantive community and state policing (not the Police Community Relations Committee please!) and the empowerment of our traditional institutions. Despite the erosion of their powers by colonial authority, and then constitutional government in the last century, our traditional rulers have managed to retain their essence in the eyes of their people, if not the law.

 It was comforting to see the president convene a meeting with traditional leaders days after his inauguration. That for me was an important signal to these leaders and their subjects, that they are an essential part of our country’s leadership structure. If we intend to foster enduring peace in our country, the government must build a security architecture that involves the active participation of traditional rulers and their institutions. To start with, they are an indispensable source of intelligence. Our people still revere traditional institutions. They still trace their origins to kingdoms, not necessarily local governments or states which are subjective realities than can be obliterated by the enactment of law. For instance, a person that prior to 1976, was from the mid-western region suddenly came from Bendel State, and by 1991 was from Edo State. Regardless of the change in nomenclature, that person never stopped tracing their origin to the great Bini Kingdom.

It is time to build the spine of our national security based on what existed before slavery, survived colonialism, and constitutional government. Let us think about it seriously. Because as we already know, whatever prosperous future we envisage for our country will not come to fruition without a secure country.

With a new government comes the opportunity to consolidate on what worked in the past and then the chance to advance better ways of addressing persisting challenges. Often, we have failed to achieve success because we insist on doing things the same old way because it is rather comforting to do what one has always been used to. To make change happen though, one must surrender to the discomfort of that comes with it. Because with a new way of doing things comes new challenges. These challenges once weighed against the benefits of the change can then help inform whether to advance or not to. In Nigeria’s case, we need disruptive ideas to meet our numerous challenges, more so our national security.

 Omojuwa is chief strategist, Alpha Reach/author, Digital Wealth Book