DOES the Bola Tinubu administration have an effective and coordinated security strategy for taming the chronic killings and abductions? Since its inauguration in May 2023, the administration has logged a pathetic security record.
A new report by Amnesty International awoke Nigeria to this catastrophe: in Tinubu’s first month in office, attackers killed 123 persons. Unfortunately, the figures keep cascading.
Beacon Consulting, a security management firm, said 13,346 people have been killed, and 9,207 have been abducted in the 667 of the 774 LGs since Tinubu’s inauguration.
From May-December 2023 – eight months after taking office – 5,802 deaths and 2,754 abductions were recorded. These figures worsened in 2024 when 7,544 were killed while 6,453 were abducted from January-September. These crimes were attributed to terrorism, banditry, and herders’ attacks on farmers.
Over 150 persons were slaughtered during the last Christmas Eve in Plateau State. Bandits kidnapped 287 schoolchildren in March in Kuriga, Kaduna, and demanded N1 billion ransom.
More than 300 had been abducted a week earlier in the same village. No fewer than 10 people were killed and 160 abducted in coordinated attacks by bandits in May in Kuchi, Niger State.
Major massacres have occurred in Benue, Niger, Zamfara, Yobe, Kaduna and Yobe states in this period.
Nigeria has become an insecure space where even internally displaced persons are kidnapped in droves. In March, Boko Haram captured more than 400 people in three IDP camps in Gamborou-Ngala, Borno State.
These damning reports put the lie to the claim by Inspector-General Kayode Egbetokun in July that crime rate is declining in the country.
Despite the introduction of the National Identification Number, abductors use mobile phones to call their victims’ families to collect ransom and post their activities on Instagram without being apprehended.
Of the N28.77 trillion 2024 budget, N2.03 trillion was allocated to defence, up from the N1.38 trillion earmarked to the sector of the N21.83 trillion in the 2023 budget. The disproportionate difference between the defence budget and crass insecurity is inexplicable. It raises the question of how effectively the security budget is being implemented.
There is a dearth of equipment such as radios, walkie-talkies, and phones. Police officers use their money to buy these equipment and uniforms.
Nigeria has 371,000 police officers securing 230 million people. This is grossly inadequate. Sadly, two-thirds of the paltry number is allocated to the VIPs. Shockingly, police officers are guarding clergies, musicians, and union leaders (read touts), even as communities are abandoned to be killed by criminals.
Governor Aminu Masari lamented in 2020 that only 30 police officers manned 100 villages in Katsina.
These killings will not go away without strong political will and a change in security strategy.
Nigeria has become a big den of kidnapping and an expansive theatre of killings since the incursion of insurgency. Despite the humongous allocations to defence, the country lost 53,135 to violence during the eight years of the immediate-past Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Despite the intervention of the security agencies, the insecurity still overwhelms their efforts. This calls for technology to secure the country’s vast space and people. The government must urgently do something about the porous borders being exploited by non-nationals to engage in arms proliferation, killings, and abduction.
The extant central police structure is not working. Nigeria should practice true federalism, as the other 24 federal jurisdictions globally. Therefore, the government must urgently implement the state police recommendation to ensure the effective security and safety of the people by their people who know their terrains.
The security agencies must engage in improved collaboration to put the heat on the non-state actors. The police should employ more hands. The government must adequately fund the police.
The intelligence units in the military, the DSS, and the National Intelligence Agency should drive intelligence.
