Date Published: 03/14/10

Jos Crisis and National Security By Niran Abitogun

       The recent crisis in Jos city the capital town of Plateau state is a minus for the security of the nation.  Suddenly the resultant effect led to the sacking of Maj.Gen Sarkin Mukhtar (rtd) as the national security adviser. The retired army general had perhaps engaged himself in playing politics over and above national issues in the recent past. No wonder the state governor Jonah Jang put the blames of the security lapses on the army when he claimed that he got in touch with three hours before the mayhem actually started.

As the Fulani herdsmen struck on the wee hours of Monday in three villages around the state capital, Nigerians woke up yet to another gory incident which can aptly be described as reprisal attack.  At the end of the war, about 500 lives mostly women and children were involved. Last January, the city of Jos was under fire from some elements under the guise of religion or politics to unleash terror on the peaceful city.

Down the memory lane, in September 2001 crisis erupted which took with it more than 1000 lives, also in 2004 more than 700 people were killed in yet another upheaval, while in 2008 no fewer than 300 lives were again moaned down to one of these senseless attacks. One attack too many but the security agencies located in various areas of the state to provide security looked forlorn and unable to act decisively to provide solution the national shame.

The war of attrition as it happened on the black Monday has finally exposed the ineptitudeness of our security agencies in the country. The police, state security service (SSS), and others have proved that they are not up to the task of keeping and maintaining peace in Nigeria.  Hence their activities have come under sever scrutiny from concerned Nigerians. Their inability and capacity to gather or process intelligence reports pass to them on time remain source of worry. May be something is wrong along the line or their line of communication of bedevilled with lots of beaurocacy.

For instance the Gwom Jos, HRH Jacob Buba said he personally made enough intelligence reports to the security operatives in Abuja about the strange movement of certain elements. He wondered why nothing was done to forestall the orchestrated killing from happening. To lend support to his claim, the Inspector General of police Mr O. Onovo, claimed to have knowledge of the intended security breakdown and that he instructed his field officers in plateau state to be at alert. All this ground design failed woefully to achieve any meaningful impact as the herdsmen had a free day to inflict a crushing blow on their victims where children were the target of attack. It means that another dimension was introduced into the conflict which momentarily changed the nature of the conflicts. For the resolution of the conflict to be meaningful the nature must be understood by the negotiators.

The secretary General of Afenifere Renewal Group Yinka Odumakin is not happy with the security agencies in the country as they handle security matter in the nation. According the him the latest crisis is an indictment on the security forces in Nigeria which have largely shown failure of intelligence. Same opinion was expressed by the former vice president Atiku Abubakar as he called on the security agencies to improve on their intelligence gathering mechanism to be able to prevent frequent massacre. Even the People Democratic Party (PDP) national secretariat in Abuja condemned the security arrangement in plateau state saying it failed to rise up to its responsibilities of preventing crises and  called for more proactive measure in future.

The inability of government to provide security for citizens is a bad image for the country. In Boko Haram episode in Bornu state last year the security agencies were found wanting in the discharge of their duties. The aggressors operated  freely and to halt them the police resulted into extra judicial killing of even innocent people. This error of judgment got the nation into human rights bad book. Despite the fact that the intelligence report were made available to the security agency in Maiduguri they failed to act accordingly and the problem escalated. Our security chiefs have all turned to political contractors in Abuja and all over the nation. The quest to amaze wealth is what has preoccupied their minds these days instead of protecting the nation.

If a nation can’t protect the citizen how does it going to protect any territorial aggression from external invaders. A nation that is calling on investors to come and invest in the country at this material time of our democratic dispensation has quite a lot to do when it comes to security of the investors.

There are different opinions on the causes of the problems in plateau state and other parts of the country where it occurs, they are political, religion, oppression, poverty, value and culture, all these factors were present in Nigeria not in  Jos alone.  The nation’s employment statistics have risen more than 54 per cent mostly youths in spite of yearly billions in naira voted to combat it. Surely these deprived and jobless youths will provide a viable ground for recruitment of army to fight. The manner in which religion is handled in Nigeria is dreadful to say the least. The two dominant religions are guilty. Instead of preaching love and brotherliness, they preach to incite their congregations to be intolerant of one another. From the political point of view the politicians easily take the advantage of the disarticulated society to wreck further havoc into the politics of the nation. The wish to rule for 60years also propelled them to devise strategies to capture votes and power at all cost hence the adoption of divide and rule principle cleverly tainted with religion and culture to achieve their subjective goals...We have a country where votes no longer counts and the political robbery is evident everywhere. In this instance violence will definitely manifest to feel the gap between the people and the government. On the other hand the most potent factor being the Hausa/Fulani settlers who wanted more integration than they enjoy at present and the native population who want to control their land and the government. Equally these groups are divided along religion, Muslim settlers versus Christian native. This is a very dangerous development indeed that can cause problem any time of the day if not properly managed. The war of supremacy has thus defiled an appreciable settlement or resolution either from government’s intervention or from private initiative. In the concept of conflict resolution and management the need of the conflicting groups must be ascertain for any meaningful negotiation to take place. Though the constitution of the republic allows everybody to practise its religion without fear and anywhere in the country in practice it has not been followed. There still exist no go areas for one to worship God. It is a calamity that should be eliminated in the name of civilization. The leader of Boko Haram religion sect Yusuf, wanted to return the country to pre-western civilization as explain in his reasons for carrying arms against fellow Nigerians. Civilization has gone past the mundane thinking of using religion to dictate the path of progress. All other nations around the world relishes in technology to advance their course of development but my country rely on primordial methods.

The implications of the nation’s security lapses in the last few months can best be imagined. The international communities will lose faith in the country; capital is very jittery it can only survive in an atmosphere of peace. Any country without peace cannot attract capital in term of investments. The government will definitely not command the respect it deserves from within and outside the shores of the country while our democracy suffers in the long run. In order to ensure their protection every citizen will resort into self security system and put more pressure on the polity. There will also be confusion across the land and such other vices.

We need to strengthen the nation’s judicial apparatus to be able to respond to all these challenges. Those culprits that were arrested in Jos should be tried there instead of ferrying them to Abuja where at the end of the day justice will not come. For instance we don’t know what happened to those arrested last January; this can reinforce the position of the herdsmen to go for another war.

The beauty of Jos city has been desecrated by the blood of innocent people; am sure no visitor would want to visit such a slab.

The government should as a matter of restoring sanity into the city bring together the warring groups to the table for discussion. They should be told that they stand the risk of losing  what they stand to achieve if no compromise is reached and that they should imaging the future they want to hand down to the future generations including their children. Enough is enough.

Niran Abitogun

Abuja, Nigeria.