I remember growing up and contemplating what secondary school to attend. Daddy joked about sending my sisters and me to Federal government girls’ colleges in Potiskum and Gboko. We laughed about how interesting it would be to go to schools so far away. We would scream and say, “No Daddy!” Dad would laugh it off but we knew that going to a boarding school far away from home was non-negotiable for us. We eventually went to secondary school in Jos and Abuja from Lagos. Reflecting on those conversations with Dad, it is interesting how we never thought about insecurity. Dad did not fear for our safety. His thought was that he needed us to grow up to be independent women with a rounded experience of Nigeria. We were born and raised in Lagos but Dad believed that there was value in going to boarding school far away from home. Dad was right. Secondary school was tough but necessary. My secondary school years were interesting, difficult, and educative. I got to experience diverse people and cultures. I got to experience the beautiful Plateau State, and in the times that we travelled by road, I experienced Nigeria. I even tried foods I could not pronounce. My current adventures with new foods were birthed through my boarding school experience. I am grateful that my Dad chose to send us to school across the country.
Fast forward to 27 years later and the time came for my son to go to secondary school, I knew boarding school was certain for him. I wanted my children to experience the beauty of Plateau state as I did in my secondary school years. However, news of attacks in schools and communities in Plateau state killed that dream very quickly. Nigeria is not safe as it was in the 80s and 90s. The National Youth Service Corps, established to promote cultural integration and unity is unable to achieve its goals because of the growing insecurity in the country. Parents are losing their children to insecurity.
Daily, we are inundated with news about killer herdsmen, unnamed armed groups, bandits, and kidnappers. All of these pale in comparison to the devastation sweeping the North East in the form of terrorist attacks. The country is at its tipping point with citizens afraid and unsure of what the future holds for them. There are no guarantees that our lives, the lives of our loved ones, and our property is safe. Too much going on. For instance, Monday 26th April 2021 was a dark day in Nigeria’s history. The news was rife with stories of killings, kidnappings, and destruction, see here, here, and here. These crimes are not restricted to a specific geopolitical zone but they spread across the country from students in a Federal Institution in Benue state to Lagos state where the National Union of Road Transport Workers and commercial bike riders were involved in a violent exchange and Anambra state where “hoodlums” killed nine people. In Kaduna state, Greenfield University suffered the loss of some of its students kidnapped by “bandits”.
Research conducted by SBM Intelligence stated that 591 people were killed in 160 violent incidents between 1–27 April 2021. See the graph below.
Nigeria’s security forces no longer own a monopoly of violence. With the police notorious for extrajudicial killings and soldiers accused of indiscriminately killing civilians, non-state actors have learned to pick up arms and perpetuate violence. Different groups have learned to resort to violence when things are not going their way. With the militant Islamist movements of Boko Haram and ISWAP actively causing devastation in Northern Nigeria, the non-stop murders in Kaduna and Benue states, the list goes on. These acts of violence are motivated by either political, economic, or social grievances. Too many things are going on at the same time and it looks like the government has lost control.
Insecurity has thrived partly because there has been no consequence for crime in Nigeria. “Rehabilitated” terrorists are reintegrated into society. I hope the government has learnt that rehabilitating terrorists without them paying for their crimes does not work. Securing the release of a loved one from the grasps of kidnappers is nearly only guaranteed when ridiculous ransom demands are met. The government appears to continue to downplay or ignore this catastrophe. High-ranking members of this administration have stated that we need to resort to prayers to ensure Nigeria’s security. Like ostriches, they have chosen to hide their heads in the sand and ignore the wreckage that surrounds us as a country. One tends to wonder if we elected God or we elected inept human beings into public office.
Nigeria, according to the Chandler Good Government Index, is ranked at 102/104 on good governance. Ahead of Venezuela and Zimbabwe, Nigeria is the third-worst governed country in the world. This comes as no surprise, considering that our economy is crashing. Inflation is at 18.17%, the unemployment rate has risen to 33%, the second-highest, on Bloomberg’s global list. We are currently the poverty capital of the world. With India’s population, being about seven times that of Nigeria’s, in 2020, we became the country with the most people living in extreme poverty.
In addition to the shrinking of the Lake Chad Basin and desertification in the North, continued conflict in rural areas has led to disruptions in livelihood activities in Northern Nigeria. Displacements have reduced income-earning opportunities for people running away from their conflict-ridden communities. Access to food is reducing significantly. Food prices have increased exponentially. Insecurity in Nigeria has affected every sector and we can no longer look away and hope for a miracle from God.
The questions are many, where do we go from here, how can we fix the broken security apparatus in the country, how do we get the government to care enough to do something about the problems we face? How has the government grown numb to news of killings? Why is it okay to pay millions of naira to secure the release of Nigerian citizens from terrorists? The biggest question for me is this, what is a human life worth in Nigeria? Many Nigerians are getting jaded and disenchanted. The government that has been mostly mute about reports of killings and kidnappings in the last few weeks was quick to lend its support to a sitting minister found to have once promoted extremist views which led to the destruction of Nigerians’ lives and property.
Why do I write all of this, you ask.
I see that we are scared, worried, and tired. We are afraid that like others before us, our cries will be silenced by the very people who should empathise. Worried that the same pushback and possibly grave consequences others have faced would befall us if we speak against bad governance. Trust me, I am also afraid. However, I am more afraid of the consequences for our children. I am tired of hearing and reading about school children abducted and killed. I am afraid that it can be any one of us at any time. No one is safe anymore.
I wish I had the answers and the silver bullet for dealing with insecurity in Nigeria. However, I do know that complacency and lack of political will are not the answers. Bad governance has already cost us a lot, now it’s threatening our very existence.
