By Dr Chidi Amuta

Nigeria’s now perennial insecurity has been damaged by political laziness. Every two- penny politician has developed a habit of weaponizing insecurity as political language. In the process, very little effort or rigour is devoted to the reality of what we are dealing with. Even those who are paid to keep us safe tend to resort to simplistic solutions to what is clearly a complex problem. Everyone seems to be mimicking politicians, talking frequently about insecurity as if the problem will go away the more we talk about it.

National insecurity as we have come to know it has grown in dimension and scope over the last twelve years or so. When factions of jihadist terrorists invade local governments in parts of Borno or Yobe state, we are dealing with threats to Nigeria’s sovereignty by an adversary that may indeed be ‘external’ with inputs from ignorant local zealots. They take and hold territory, convert citizens into dissidents and collect taxes and levies  and in the process extract loyalties that ordinarily belong to a sovereign authority. This level of national insecurity belongs in the realm of external aggression by a concerted foreign adversary. It does not matter whether it recruits and arms our citizens to do its bidding or draws inspiration from an external multinational ideology such as fanatical Islamist fundamentalism. We must call it its real name and design and deploy containment instruments and strategies that befit an external aggression.

With the onset of the Boko Haram insurgency in parts of the North East, Nigeria can be said to have been involved in a counter insurgency war for the better part of the past twelve years. In the process, Boko Haram has sometimes been degraded, reinforced, splintered or been acquired by ISWAP and other franchises  born and bred in the Middle East and nurtured in the turbulent Sahel. Have we been winning or losing that war? Yes and no. We have at least retaken most of the local governments that the terrorists  initially acquired as part of an evil caliphate in the hot days of  Al Qaida and ISIS. But the fact that twelve years after the inauguration of Boko Haram, factions of this movement are still taking huge numbers of hostages and razing buildings is an indictment of whatever effort we have exerted so far.

In the immediate neighboring precincts of the insurgency war- Katsina, Kaduna, Zamfara- hybrid forms of insurgent insecurity have taken shape. Banditry, quantum abductions and kidnapping for ransom are now recognized forms of national insecurity. Initially, these hybrid forms acted as retail arms of the larger jihadist insurgency. They used to  supply them with hostages, sha ransoms and collected revenue and hide under their ideological umbrella for greater political relevance. Over time, however, the bandits and other downstream criminal gangs have come unto their own. They mostly now operate as independent criminal enterprises with a purely commercial purpose. This form of insecurity has graduated into a criminal enterprise. They carry out daring raids, collect huge ransoms which is reinvested in more arms for further raids. The industry grows.

In this form, agents of insecurity have sometimes reached for recognition by state governments and agencies of  national security. Some local bandit squads have in the recent past reached understandings with individual state governments and even posed for photo opportunities with them after these meetings. Implicit in such unholy alliances is a certain illicit power sharing arrangement. Under these arrangements, embattled state governments are known to have ceded parts of their territory to bandit squads, allowing them  to collect revenue from locals and to wield authority over some local governments literally unchallenged.

This form of national insecurity is inherently dangerous because it cedes parts of the national sovereign space and authority to non -state actors and in the process accords them space and scope to disturb the peace, make lots of money and whittle down the capacity of security agencies to exercise total control over  the national sovereign space. More dangerously, illicit non -state actors partake of national resources to make the nation even more  ungovernable while also compromising segments and aspects of national  security structures and personnel.

The atmosphere of insecurity created by the proliferation and free reign of bandit squads and roving armed cartels has led to a spread in the supply of small to medium scale arms. Retail editions of trouble makers like armed robbers, small time kidnappers and urban cults have found an atmosphere of general insecurity that is both lucrative and in vogue. An industry of sorts has been born. Herdsmen that were originally engaged in herding and the livestock trade have since found kidnapping, armed robbery and abductions more lucrative than escorting scraggy herds around the nation.

We cannot fail to add to this picture the thriving political industry and its inherent criminal offshoots. Political thugs, licensed state militias and all manner of private armies have in the last twenty four years of democracy  come into being. Political supremacy in most parts of the country has come with the help of armed thugs generously supplied with weapons, narcotics and other dangerous substances. In post election periods, these political agents of violence tend to find work for their hands anduse for their weapons in sundry criminal undertakings. In an atmosphere where employment is scarce and easy money quickly runs dry, the political industry has perhaps inadvertently been fueling the atmosphere of national insecurity  which the same politicians return to convert into campaign issues in the next election cycle.

The fierce competition for political vantage placement has also led to the growth of ethnic, regional and other separatist movements. They generally start out by shouting for recognition and relevance in a national space that deliberately ignores extant disquiet. When no one seems to be listening, the rhetoric of separatist agitators assumes an incendiary tone. Soon enough, the more determined ones set up armed militias since the authorities tend to listen more when their monopoly of violence is challenged by an equally fierce contender for power and political space. Armed separatist movements have in the last ten years therefore added their voice and muscle to the spread of violence as a means of political expression in the country. IPOB, ESN and the various Niger Delta militias belong in this sphere.

This is the effective backdrop to the current situation in which governments at nearly every level seem to have been held to ransom by all these forms of insecurity all over the country. The sheer expanse of the insecurity landscape is more vast than the entire security asset base of the country can deal with. Therefore, bandits and all sorts of criminals are fairly certain that the security agencies cannot easily interrupt their operations let alone effectively trail or arrest them.

There is no lack of response from government. Endless meetings have taken place between politicians and service chiefs. The two chambers of the National Assembly have met severally with the service chief. State governors have met repeatedly with the president with the matter of insecurity topping the agenda of every meeting. The Federal government has gone to considerable length to acquire weapons of war  from all corners of the globe to combat what has become a systemic insecurity. It has become systemic because it has become self- regenerating, having become an economic sub sector which requires  self sustainability to drive itself as a series of economic activities.

Last month, however, an emergency meeting of the president and state governors was prompted by an increase in incidents of insecurity in and around the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. The most consequential decision of that meeting was a decision to begin the implementation of the long canvassed introduction of State Police as a silver bullet to end insecurity in the country.

One of the strongest arguments advanced by advocates of a State Police system is local knowledge and proximity to the community origins of criminality around the country. This argument is not new. Nor are we just being introduced to perspectives about  how to solve insecurity in the country.

Given the picture of the multi dimensional nature of our insecurity,  no single item agenda can deal with the problem. State Police is fraught with many weaknesses. It is likely to be commandeered by ambitious state governors into private political weapons. The operatives could become terror squads who use their new found power and uniforms to torment innocent people. State Police can further divide the country,  terrorize the people they are supposed to protect and reduce the effectiveness of the existing national police force.  Misuse of the powers of the State Police can further divide the country. After all, before the civil war, we had regional police formations. They became part of the divisive forces that had to be neutralized to reunify the country in 1970.

It is undeniable that one of the benefits of over four decades of military rule and the civil war is the emergence of a unified police and military command. That benefit cannot be wiped away by the present anxiety over insecurity. Nothing has so far happened in our national security situation that invalidates or overrides the advantages of national integration in matters of police or military command and national security control. On the contrary, what our situation requires is a serious interrogation of the overall internal security situation in the country to determine why the existing structure has not quite served us well enough.

We are under policed. The police has been overwhelmed for years in terms of personnel and equipment. Equipment and recruitment in the police has not matched our population growth and the rate of sophistication of the criminal enterprise. Similarly, the military has in the post civil war era found itself in roles that have degraded its operational capability and professional advancement. The involvement of the military and entire gamut of national security apparatus in internal security has militated against real professional development of the various services.  Our military is today involved in civil security operations in all of our 36 states and Abuja.

As indicated earlier, the profile of our internal security challenges presents a complex picture that may not have fully dawned on the present state. At the end of the civil war, the enemy was either  an external aggressor or internal criminals. The civil populace wanted to be at peace after the trauma of war. While a war -tested military was adequate for the former role, the police was more than adequate for the latter task of keeping the peace.  The military is defined in its role. Its rules of engagement are self -defining: defend or be conquered. The police is a civil force with rules of engagement circumscribed by democracy and the civil rights of free citizens.

Towards the end of the Babangida regime, a different internal security picture began to emerge. A different type of civil unrest became more manifest. Inter communal  violence began to feature among groups that had coexisted for years. Between the Jukun and their neighbours, in the Zango Kataf area of Southern Kaduna, in parts of the Niger Delta etc. Sections of the country began to witness problems of ethno national integration. Even within the newly created states, issues of inter communal co -existence began to show up. There was a perception then than the task of nation building was largely uncompleted and still needed to be fine -tuned. A different type of trouble maker was emerging. Armed militants intent on challenging the federal might were in the horizon.

The new forms of violent self -assertion were more than the police could deal with but a little less ferocious than what a full military engagement was required to deal with.  The necessity was therefore for an intermediate force; something not as tame and civil as the police and also not as ferocious and terminal as the military. Thus was born the idea of the National Guard. Unfortunately, this idea came too late in Babangida’s troubled political transition programme. Opposition to the possibility of a Babangida self- perpetuation ploy also became part of the opposition to the idea of a National Guard. For the political class, no good or disinterested idea could come from the beleaguered military administration. Both were thrown away  with the same birth water.

Here we are once again with an insecurity challenge that literally re-writes the challenge that was envisioned by the authors of the National Guard over 30 years ago.  The idea of the National Guard was to have a uniform national organization but with substantial state government control on deployment. It should be a mid intensity force that is civil enough to realize that the criminals and trouble makers in each state are first and foremost Nigerians with full civic rights. It however needs to be taken more seriously than the police at the local government office who separates domestic fights and settles quarrels among siblings.

The National Guard should be under the ultimate control of the president as commander in chief without whose endorsement no state governor has the power to deploy the National Guard. But the National Guard needs to be composed of state contingents who are familiar with the local terrain.

In the United States, the National Guard is an offshoot of the army. It is made up of army reservists who are called up for specific tours of duty for specific lengths of time annually. In times of national emergency above the call of the police but less intense than requiring the military, the army can advise the president to call in the National Guard. The desirable Nigerian National Guard should be a variant of this format.

On no account must we establish and equip a separate state police force and place it under the control of our emergent crop of imperial governors. That would be an invitation to quick anarchy.

Dr. Amuta, a Nigerian journalist, intellectual and literary critic, was previously a senior lecturer in literature and communications at the universities of Ife and Port Harcourt.

From our special correspondent in Abuja

In a significant move towards fortifying Nigeria’s economic strategies, Dr. Gazali Muhammad Abubakar has been appointed as the Technical Advisor to President Ahmad Tinubu of Nigeria on Development Finance. This announcement comes on the heels of his impactful tenure as the Executive Secretary/CEO of the National Agricultural Development Fund.

Dr. Muhammad, an alumnus of Bayero University, Kano (BUK), where he earned a B.Sc. in Economics, the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, where he bagged an M.Sc in Economics with distinction, further solidified his academic prowess with a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Bakhtalruda, Sudan. Notably, his interest in Islamic finance, coupled with a diverse array of professional qualifications, positions him as a thought leader in the realm of economic development.

Prior to this prestigious appointment, Dr. Gazali has held pivotal roles, including the position of Senior Special Advisor to the Managing Director of NIRSAL Micro Finance Bank. This experience reflects his commitment to navigating the intricate landscape of financial institutions, underscoring his ability to contribute significantly to the nation’s economic vision.

The expectations surrounding Dr. Gazali’s new role are nothing short of transformative for comprehensive national development. With a background steeped in agricultural development, he is anticipated to spearhead policies and initiatives that bolster national development, particularly focusing on sustainable growth strategies.

Dr. Gazali’s expertise in Islamic finance is expected to bring a fresh perspective to economic policies, potentially fostering financial inclusivity and ethical financial practices as integral components of Nigeria’s developmental agenda. No doubt, his strategic guidance is anticipated to extend beyond conventional economic measures, reaching grassroots levels and ensuring that development is inclusive and impactful across various sectors.

With this appointment  Dr Gazali emerges as a key player in shaping Nigeria’s economic landscape, and its impact is poised to extend beyond the corridors of power and the urban centers of Nigeria, reaching the grassroots level and becoming a driving force for national development. Through his strategic guidance, Nigeria looks forward to a renewed emphasis on financial inclusivity, creating opportunities for a broader spectrum of the population to actively participate in economic activities.

Furthermore, the fight against poverty in Nigeria is set to receive a boost under Dr. Gazali’s leadership. His comprehensive approach, honed through diverse experiences in the financial sector, is expected to drive initiatives that uplift marginalized communities and create sustainable solutions to alleviate poverty.

As Nigeria charts its course towards economic resilience and inclusivity, Dr. Gazali’s appointment signals a strategic move by the Federal Government of Nigeria to harness the expertise needed for comprehensive and impactful economic development. His tenure as Technical Advisor  is anticipated to leave an indelible mark on Nigeria’s pursuit of sustained growth, financial inclusivity, and poverty alleviation.

By Chidi Amuta

The raging war between Israel and Hamas will not end before tomorrow’s Christmas is over. The unfortunate war has instead yielded two principal casualties: the first is the nativity festivals of Christmas which have made Bethlehem a favorite destination for Christian pilgrims. Home to the historic shrines and places of the Christian faith, Bethlehem has from time immemorial been the only authentic destination for Christian pilgrims. Those who want to see the birth place of Christ, the place where Christ was born, where he died  and was entombed, return endlessly to Bethlehem every year for that spiritual atonement that all peoples of faith perennially long for. Bethlehem has over the centuries become for Christian faithful what Mecca and Medina is for Moslem faithful.

The city used to receive an annual influx of 2 million pilgrims. This steady deluge of pilgrims powered the economy of the city and contributed to the revenue of the Israeli nation itself. The hotels, the restaurants, the tour operators, the bus and coach companies, the tour guides with their worn out narratives and the thousands of youth employed in all the pilgrim service enterprises have over the years taken on a life of their own.

In the fog of this season’s raging war in Gaza, all that seems to have come to a screeching halt. This year, the previous traffic is down to almost nothing as the festivities and tour sites have been shut down. Most of the activities and festivities that used to make Bethlehem the “go to” place in Israel have either been drastically scaled down or totally cancelled. No one knows when these events and venues will reopen and normalcy return.

The bustle of pilgrimage events and faith holiday activities have yielded to an ominous quiet and silence. This is not “the silent nights” of  the Christmas song. It is the real eerie silence of a silent foreboding, the whisper of something devious and sinister lurking in the dark street corners. It is perhaps only the presence of young hooded operatives of Mossad and Shin Beth and the uniformed police that reassure people that no one will detonate a bomb or hurl a missile at the holy sites.

When the hostilities recede or stop, the mentality of war and siege will not easily depart. Loss of hotel revenues, the silence of shuttered restaurants, the barricaded memento shops and deserted bus routes may yet endure for a while. Both faith and the economics of faith have been badly injured by the silence imposed by the war and the fear of terrorist attacks even in this holiest of places.

The second victim is the uneasy calm of Gaza, the home of   nearly 2.5 million mostly Palestinians that has perennially been besieged by the vigilance of the overlord next door.  Gaza before this war was a city besieged by the hope of freedom and an eternal longing for the Palestinian homeland. In Gaza, an uneasy calm has been replaced by the boom of guns and the reality of death and blood in unusual places. In hospitals, schools, playgrounds and residential apartments, the guns of war have devastated the peace and left behind an endless trail of the blood of the innocent. Women, children, the elderly and the infirm have all fallen victims to this war. At the last count, over 20,000 non -combatant deaths and still counting have been recorded in Gaza.

The infrastructure that supports life has been devastated as streets have been replaced by endless heaps of rubble. Homes have been shattered and reduced to rubble. The basic things that support life: water, food, medicine, infant formula and basic conveniences have all become luxuries for which people have to wait for aid trucks to arrive so that they can scramble for supplies. Life in Gaza has become in Hobbesian terms, “ short, nasty and brutish”. Death and tragedy have become the permanent certainty and companions of the widows, orphans and destitute of Gaza.

The harvest of death in Gaza did not cause itself. It is unnecessary and uncalled for. Hamas invited this holocaust on innocent Palestinians. On the 7^th of October, Hamas staged a foolish attack on Israeli Kibuths and border towns. In addition to hurling thousands of rockets into Israeli territory, Hamas sent fighters into Israel to kill, maim and kidnap innocent people as hostages.  Over 1,700 innocent Israelis at a Jewish festival were killed. Another 200 or more were taken hostage. The world cried in anguish. Hamas was triumphal at its opportunistic attack.

The magnitude of Israel’s response was perhaps beyond the imagination of Hamas and its friends. This under estimation is evidence of the poverty of strategic thinking among Hamas and its handlers and backers. It is perhaps true that terrorists never factor in consequences when they strike. They only think of the immediate impact of their disruption. On this occasion, the miscalculation was epic. How come Hamas has spent years preparing for war against Israel without understanding the basic psychology of its adversary?

Israel was born out of necessity, nurtured in adversity and has been sustained by a group psychology of unrelieved siege. Of all the nations of the modern world, Israeli is the one nation that was forged in the furnace of war and has spent all of its existence fighting wars of varying intensity, preparing for emergencies and literally readying for the next war. To date, a total of nine wars since its founding in 1947 including The war of independence( 1947-49), Sinai War (1956), Six day War (1967), First Intifada, Second Intifada, Yum Kippur war etc.

Prior to the founding of Israel as a modern nation state by UN Resolution, there had been the Holocaust in which over 6 million Jews were incinerated in gas chambers in Germany during the Second World War. The totality of these wars and the memory of the Holocaust have left in the collective unconscious of the Jewish people of Israel a permanent imprint of hurt that resolves into the phrase NEVER AGAIN as an expression of national survival. Any hostile action that minimally reminds Israel of any hurt to its people is an act of war that can only invoke vicious reprisals. Israel is therefore perennially ready for war at the shortest possible notice. War is the national  reflex of the Israeli nation.

This has of course led the country to develop one of the most sophisticated military and intelligence capabilities in the Middle East if not in the world. It has a deliverable and proven nuclear weapons capability as well. Therefore, the Hamas attack of October 7^th is the latest act of war against Israel in recent times. It has naturally upset the precarious balance of hostile forces in the region and invoked obvious partisanship among nations both in support of and against Israel. The most significant ally of the Israelis has of course been the United States with open military support. As a counter force, the solidarity of Arab states like Iran has bolstered the support for Hamas.

The Hamas war is a major diplomatic setback for Israel and by extension moderate states in the region. It has come at a time when an increasing number of moderate Arab states were reaching accommodation with Israel under various guises of the US initiated Abraham Accord. Major economic cooperation agreements between Israel and the major economic players in the region like UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar had begun to signal a new benign alignment of forces that could transform the region from a cauldron of hostility, terror and war to a zone of peaceful coexistence and peace through the pursuit of  collective prosperity. Then came the Hamas attack and the war of reprisal still raging.

After nearly three months of hostilities and devastation, Gaza has virtually been razed to the ground. The greatest humanitarian disaster in recent world history has raged uncontrolled. Casualties from among civilians, children, women and the aged have been recorded in astronomical proportions. Yes, Israel was badly hurt and disarmingly surprised by the 7^th October attack. But the reprisal war has been disproportionate. On a headcount basis, the 1,700 Israelis killed on October 7^th do not match the over 20,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza. Not to talk of the devastation of infrastructure and livelihoods.

Current international diplomatic efforts up to the United Nations are still focused on how to stop the shooting and begin the talking. Food, medicines, water and the necessities of life need to get to the needy and distressed. Hospitals have been wiped off the landscape of Gaza. No one has as yet begun to discuss the crucial long standing political issues at stake between Israel and the Palestinians. The matter of peace and security between Israeli and its Palestinian neighbours remains largely unaddressed. No one knows what fate awaits Gaza politically after the guns go silent and the rumble of bulldozers subside. Israel insists on garrisoning the territory after this war. Everyone else rejects that apartheid colonialist arrangement. Hamas remains unrepentant about its terrorist reputation and the attendant routine hurling of rockets at Israel as well as the casual taking of hostages that look like either Israelis or Americans or indeed anyone that looks strange in the vicinity.

International diplomats keep sounding like broken vinyl records on the desirability of peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors. We all know that peace in the region would be a function of guarantees of Israel’s security in return for freedom and independence for a Palestinian state next door. The bitterness of the present hostilities do not make the prospect of peace any brighter.

If indeed this goal were unanimously agreed upon, what stops the United Nations from creating the independent Palestinian state by a UN resolution as was done in the case of Israel? Such a state created by UN fiat should be recognized by a cross section of the international community beginning with Israel, the United States and the Arab states both radical and moderate. It could be governed on an interim basis by a mandated UN government of collaborating Palestinians, Arab members, Israeli representatives and other UN observers for an agreed period. Peace eternal would come upon this region and the world can heave a sigh of relief from these ever so frequent wars and random terror strikes and eruptions.

For us in Nigeria, the war between Israel and Hamas has reignited an unfortunate ignorance and misinformation about Israel in the religious mindset of the ordinary Nigerian. In the popular imagination of Nigeria’s Christian half, Israel is held as the bastion nation of Christianity, the abode of God’s ‘chosen’ people with a divine mission and destiny to triumph over persecutions on earth. Therefore a confrontation between Israel and its Arab neighbors is couched as a clash of the two dominant faiths in the world and in our country.

At the onset of the current war between Israel and Hamas, prominent Nigerian pastor and faith entrepreneur proprietor of The Redeemed Christian Church, Mr. Adeboye, publicly prayed in congregation that God should deliver victory to Israel in its then impending confrontation with Hamas. Underlying that unfortunate misrepresentation is a notion that pervades Nigeria’s Christian population. Israel is mistaken as a Christian nation. Far from it.

The Jewish nation of Israel is not a Christian nation even though it is home to the significant shrines and holy places of classical Christianity- the tomb of Christ, the major venues of Christian history as recorded in the Old Testament of the Bible. It should be instructive that among the infrastructure that have been destroyed by Israeli air strikes are Gaza’s oldest church, St. Porphyrius, where 16 worshippers were killed in an earlier Israeli air strike. Since the war started, the Christian population of Gaza has continued to decline as the faithful have continued to flee from the violence of Israeli attacks.

The ultimate reality of the Israel-Hamas war is still the ancient struggle by a powerful nation state to suppress a weaker vassal neighbor for the purpose of its security and regional pre-eminence. The solution can only be an international rebalancing of forces. That is the best way to make peace enticing and further violence unattractive.

Dr. Amuta, a Nigerian journalist, intellectual and literary critic, was previously a senior lecturer in literature and communications at the universities of Ife and Port Harcourt.