By Lindsay Barrett
It can hardly be denied that the outburst of insurgency and criminal irregularity throughout Nigeria has attained unprecedented levels in recent years. The spread of instability and violent social misconduct in Northern Nigeria in particular has taken on aspects of endemic public disorder, which undermine the maintenance of peace and communal harmony constantly. It has become obvious to most observers who pay serious attention to the nature and origin of the events occurring in several Northern states that the predilection for insurgent attitudes has become the norm in some of those communities.
It was a reflection of this penchant for hold- ing the authorities to ransom that led some influential political leaders in the North to threaten the Goodluck Jonathan administration with the spectre of ungovernable anarchy if the people chose him over ex-General Buhari team in the contest for presidential power in 2015. It has turned out that the anarchy that they predicted has remained extant in the society in spite of the fact that Goodluck accepted defeat and left power in the hands of their champion,
The highest level of insecurity has become the convention in some of the most publicly prominent states of the North such as Kat- sina, Zamfara, Kaduna, and Borno States, The circumstances surrounding the break- down of law and order in these particular states will bear the scrutiny of proper investigation and interest from those who wish to proffer solutions to the problem of burgeoning insecurity in the Nigerian nation as an element of political management in the nation today.
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Some events of recent weeks raise important questions about the true circumstances that exist in the nation today. For example, when President Buhari was visiting his home state of Katsina a few weeks ago a band of kidnappers chose that period to abduct approximately 400 students from a secondary school in the state. While the state Government appeared to be fully aware of who the perpetrators were the operation that was mounted to save the kidnapped students descended into farcical failure.
They were transported to a neighbouring state and released after a week as rumours swirled about suggesting that a ransom of several million naira has been paid by government, When the abductees were returned to the school with unseemly haste and fanfare on that same day about 300 students were abducted from a second school in the state. What this circumstance suggested is that the criminal elements undertaking these operations have perfected a system of insurrectionist blackmail with which they confront the authorities in order to gain compensation by creating disorder.
If we observe the spread of these tactics throughout Nigeria’s northern states, we cannot help but conclude that the dysfunctional political conduct encouraged by the leadership of the territory during Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure in office has provided the excuse for insurrection and disorder in Northern communities. In a recent meeting arranged between a community in Kaduna State and the security agencies in the state in order to discuss and alleviate the situation several community leaders justified insurrection and criminal acts by young men from their community by alleging that they were protesting social neglect.
What this suggests, especially as the authorities seemed to acknowledge the genuineness of the sentiments expressed by the community leaders, is that insurrection and criminality are acceptable responses to political neglect and that such conduct represents legitimate reaction by disenchanted members of society. However, this attitude is totally wrongheaded in a situation where democratic choice and decision-making should be the norm. It is this wrongheadedness that has become the convention in political exchange throughout much of the relatively collaborative arena of Northern Nigerian state polities.
In Zamfara State there exists a hidden but very viable gold mining industry that has thrived for decades by being condoned il- legally and allowed to thrive by successive governments pretending not to know that it exists. In contemporary times Zamfara state has been the site of a growing flood of bandit- ry as gangs armed with automatic rifles and other arms attack some of the mining centres and other communities and rob them of their property.
The relentless insurrection in Zamfara State echoes the even worse and more pernicious Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State, which apart from tying down a sub- stantial proportion of the Nigerian Armed Forces for nearly twelve years has now become even more dastardly in its tactics Its latest major attack on communal stabil- ity was a planned massacre of scores of in- nocent farmers in their farms, which was clearly aimed at undermining agricultural viability in the state.
The Boko Haram insurgency is an exam- ple of home grown terrorism that has relationships with international terrorism, but which was born out of local political circumstances and provoked by peculiar domestic situations. Although Boko Haram was undoubtedly an insurgent problem in the Goodluck Jonathan era it has become a more intransigent problem for the incumbent government of Muhammadu Buhari in spite of the fact that the objective of defeating the insurgency was proposed as one of the major purposes for replacing the Jonathan administration.
The main danger now confronting Nigeria as a whole is fallout from the growth of insecurity in Northern Nigeria. The spread of armed insurgency and other criminal activity as an integral part of the activities of traditional nomadic herdsmen from the North in parts of Central and Southern Nigeria has provoked serious instability in the country.
Those who promised to make the country ungovernable for Goodluck Jonathan might not have considered this aspect of the legacy of the past when they threatened Nigeria’s first leader from the southern minorities but their sentiments provided the herdsmen with justifiable excuses for considering their customs as being under threat. It is this attitude that now dominates their interaction with some elements of the communities that they encounter in their connection with the rest of the nation.
In fact, any attempt to enhance the democratic system of governance at both the state level and at the centre will provoke political com- petition among the elite minority and the popular majority.
This will provide a volatile foundation out of which unfortunately more insecurity could evolve from the political discourse in the nation unless dysfunctional sentiments such as the threat uttered against Jonathan when he was President is expunged from the polity effectively.
In practicing governance those who are entrusted by the people with the responsibility to lead must be aware of their duty to ensure that they do not encourage irresponsibility of their public followership by suggesting that insecurity is a tool of political advantage that they are willing to deploy.
