NIGERIA AND PERVASIVE INSECURITY

When was the last time you slept with both eyes closed? I guess it has been a while. It has become so difficult to sleep in Nigeria. A country that was once an oasis of peace has morphed into a hotbed of sleeplessness.

If you stay in Abuja, especially on the outskirts – Apo, Bwari, Lokogoma, Kubwa, Lugbe – basically satellite towns, you must now be getting used to what has long been a tradition in other parts of the country.

You must have stayed up a few nights already this year, straining for strange sounds, your heart pounding wildly as you prepare for the coming of the true owners of Abuja, its latest landlords. How many times have you lamented the security situation in Nigeria? If you never have, how have you been processing things recently?

When in 2022, terrorists tore down the medium security correctional facility in Kuje and sprung some of Nigeria’s most dangerous criminals, didn’t the government spit fire, vowing that ‘Never again’? Today, ‘never ’ has slackened into every now and then. If gold rusts, what will iron do? If the seat of the Nigerian government is being overrun by kidnappers, what is the date of other parts of the country?

That fate is not far-fetched. It is a notorious fact that terrorists control entire villages in some Nigerian states. If you are in Barkin-Ladi or Bokkos in Plateau State, you may have an inkling of what could happen. Maybe, you knew one or two of the 200 people slaughtered just before Christmas last year.  A country where men, women, and children-some as young as three months – are slaughtered for Christmas instead of rams and chickens surely and precipitously sits on a time-bomb.

Depending on where you sit in the Nigerian food chain, there is a good chance that you no longer eat what you crave or spend your money on what you want. Austerity has become your new anxiety. As inflation has stripped your plates of all protein, your pockets of cash, and your bank account of all savings, Nigeria has also unfortunately stripped your eyes of all sleep.

A new year has set off a string of slaughter and abductions. There is every chance that you have been affected one way or the other by the unbridled profiteering of Nigeria’s new multi-million Naira business.  A business that Is making improbable millionaires out of otherwise venomous vagrants has become Nigeria’s new reality.

While it would be easier to saddle out blame to the Tinubu administration, there is a caveat. He may have travelled to Aso Rock through contentious elections and controversial judicial decisions, but there is just something about him that seems to number the days of Nigeria’s worst enemies.

Taking the reins from the disaster that was Muhammadu Buhari was always going to an impossible task. But you are entitled to your frustrations. In fact, your frustrations are valid. You’re anger at the failure of the government to curb insecurity is valid.  Your irritation at the irrational and ultimately empty government lines when another kidnapping happens is fair. Nigeria’s nebulous constitution is at least clear enough that the security and welfare of the people will be the primary aim of government. But what is happening here?

Insecurity has reduced the welfare of people to dust and there are many smiling to the banks because others are in pain. If the uncertainty, anxiety and insecurity in Nigeria are stoking your efforts to leave Nigeria, your feelings are perfectly rational. Even rats scamper off a sinking ship.

There may be little sense in asking the government to do its job because hardness of hearing is rife in Nigeria’s halls of power. But for whatever it is worth, I am asking the government to secure lives and property in Nigeria. To secure the lives of three-year olds and five-year olds and prevent their slaughter as happened in Plateau State. It is callous and calamitous to add insecurity to the poverty already grinding down Nigerians.

Kene Obiezu,

keneobiezu@gmail.com