Guns and Blood: The Astonishing Side of Our Collective Rage on National Security
By Mohammad Dahiru Lawal
AREWA AGENDA – Recently, I was in Zaria for a task, so I decided to squeeze out time to pay homage to Mallama Khadijah Sulaiman, a young, vibrant broadcaster and lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic Zaria. Mallama Khadija’s vibrancy and determination to lend her support towards seeing young visionaries succeed, is on another level, more especially her unreserved support for the kind of Journalism people like us do, which is geared towards national development and peaceful coexistence, hence the reason for my courtesy call.
I was therefore shocked to my marrows when just few hours after that memorable visit, my companion, Nuhu Bashir Masa, Chairman of Kaduna Young Journalists Association, KAYOJA, messaged me on WhatsApp that Mallama Khadija’s husband had been abducted by gun men who invaded their home within the Polytechnic staff quarters. That information was like a filmtrick on my processing intelligence, until Aliyu Usman seconded with his own confirmation followed by Mallama Khadijah herself.
Ever since the turn of the decade, this country has withnessed an unprecedented decline in National Security, on a scale that can be described as shocking and that’s on a softer note.
The horror we are witnessing across the country these days, have no singular definition in comprehensive logic. Every account of attack is so mentally deranging, so much so that I am scared of looking into my web feed to access updates lately, because the available dispatch on both our conventional and social media spaces is nothing less than the story of guns and blood.
Due to events of the past few weeks from abductions on the Abuja-Kaduna highway to killings in Zamfara, Borno, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau and Ekiti states, many are outraged not only because attacks have become consistent, but because is spreading frequently, daringly and more audaciously, eroding every semblance of the availability of anything like national security.
It is a fact that we have decended into an anarchic society where annihilation of citizens is becoming louder than the national anthem.
What exactly is going on? Ineptitude, conspiracy or sabotage? How on earth will someone not be safe in their own home not to talk of spaces they choose to traverse?
What happened to our National Intelligence? What happened to our military prowess? What is happening to our country?
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What level of imbecility will make an overgrown Nation with a well constituted security structure that includes an Armed Forces with the best training patroitsm can give, Policing and Intelligence Agencies, allow itself to shudder under the reigns of men of the underworld?
I can understand if the service Chiefs – Commander in Chief inclusive – are inept, clueless and incapable of tackling the situation, but what I cannot understand is the reason for their lack of emotion, their inability to feel and display the kind of rage we as citizens are experiencing right now and at least appear as if they are tackling the issue with that feat of rage – unless of course culpability and lack of political will have a query to answer in the corridors of power.
That the people in charge of making it right are acting as if they are insulated from the kind of pain and anguish we are going through due to wanton bloodletting on our land makes me wonder the kind of power and lavity they are enjoying that makes them so hardened.
I am astonished that the President is not consistently spitting fire and brimstone, I am astonished that the service chiefs are not clenching their fists and making a stampeding thump with their feets, I am amused ministers and cabinet members are not running helter skelter in rendering their portfolios that may in one way or the other, be relative to combating insecurity.
There is no gainsaying that what is going on today is a cumulation of our collective carelessness from ages ago that has created an improvised society ravished by societal hopelessness which is coming back to hunt us, otherwise even if conspiracy and culpability are factors, insecurity will never find a fetal ground to thrive because the lots of young people who are currently fueling it, wouldn’t be a readily available breed.
Besides the knee jerk approach currently being deployed by all strata’s of our security structure, consistent incursion with the aim of crime elimination should be prioritized, while non-kinetic approach such as political will, calculated interactions, prioritization of citizens nationality and livelihood, effective social behavioral and change communication methods, coordinated cyber warfare among other compelling stratigies by all levels of government, stakeholders and citizens should be deployed with immediate effect.
We all need to wake up otherwise sooner or later, there will no longer be an us.
May humanity prevail.
Mohammad Dahiru Lawal, a development Journalist and Convener of Arewa Agenda Platform of young writers and journalists from Northern Nigeria geared towards Peaceful Coexistence and National Development, writes from Kano via [email protected]
Arewa Agenda is a Publication of young writers and Journalists from Northern Nigeria towards Peaceful Coexistence and National Development through positive narratives.
