The Executive Director of the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), Okechukwu Nwanguma, is a known Human Rights fighter in Nigeria. In this interview with JULIANA FRANCIS, he takes a swipe at the escalating insecurity in Nigeria, stressing that not much has been achieved since President Bola Tinubu took over from his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.
What is your view on insecurity in President Bola Tinubu’s administration in comparison to Buhari’s?
Well, it is already eight months since Tinubu was inaugurated as President. And of course, one of the serious challenges he inherited was insecurity and the way the campaigns were run also contributed to insecurity. The sensationalism of politics and ethnic and religious tensions built up due to the way the campaigns were, contributing to insecurity.
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Generally, Tinubu inherited a very insecure country, and he identified insecurity as one of the top priorities of his government.
Of course, he took certain measures including: appointing new service chiefs, the new Inspector General Of Police and making a lot of assurances during the campaigns and after he assumed office, gave assurances of dealing with insecurity.
If you also look at the budget for security, in the new one just signed, it looks like it is higher than what it was in the previous years.
But then of course, if you compare that to the budget for the National Assembly, you will recall that the National Assembly more than doubled it and the President went ahead to sign.
What I am saying is that even though, the security budget appears to be a bit higher, it still doesn’t seem to show sufficient political will on the part of the government to address insecurity.
It appears what is more important is the personal benefits and welfare of politicians than the welfare of Nigerians, rather than equipping security agencies and improving their capacity to deal with security.
What is your take on Tinubu’s first few months in power concerning tackling insecurity?
What we have seen is that in the first five months of Tinubu, statistics from different credible sources, show that Nigerians continue to be killed by armed criminals, and non-state actors, communities continue to be attacked and people killed, kidnapping continues to happen from Zamfara to Kaduna, to Sokoto.
Do you know about the abduction of NYSC members? Also, in Sokoto where farmers are being killed for not paying certain levies imposed on them by bandits.
On independence day, there were also some killings recorded in Kaduna State. The Christmas Eve attack in Plateau State, where communities in more than three local governments were attacked and killed, and the so-called accidental bombing of people by the Nigerian Navy, all these statistics show at the end of the day, under Tinubu, we are recording millions of Nigerians being killed without the people involved in these atrocities been held to account, no arrest, no prosecution!
Is the number of people being killed in Nigeria increasing?
As of August or September, statistics showed that over 600 people had died.
With the latest incidents, including the accidental bombing of the village, the recent killings in Plateau and others, we are looking at over one million people that have been killed so far, and there doesn’t seem to be any paradigm shift in security infrastructure in Nigeria between Buhari and Tinubu, nothing much has changed.
Killings have continued and security agencies have continued to show helplessness in the face of the insecurity and killings of Nigerians.
Security agencies themselves have been attacked; we know about the ambush of military personnel in Niger State, where their plane also crashed.
In the South East of course we have recorded killings of citizens, traditional rulers, police officers and soldiers. Insecurity is not abating, and the capacity of security agencies to deal with insecurity has not been addressed. The welfare of security officers and their families is a deficit, a deficit in training, a deficit in welfare, and a deficit in morale.
As I said, I have not seen any paradigm shift in terms of the method of combating insecurity or the result. We are still witnessing escalation and Nigerians are mainly unprotected despite all the assurances in many places by the President and his spokespersons.
So that is where we are and I do not see any changes. Despite the regular meetings with security chiefs and the appointment of new security chiefs, nothing much has changed.
What are your suggestions for the present administration in this new year concerning insecurity?
Tackling insecurity requires a multi-dimensional approach. We need to first address poverty and unemployment.
Why are people taking to crime? Why is insecurity increasing? Poverty and unemployment are putting pressure on citizens and then the availability of arms.
Several arms are in the wrong hands, politicians too are contributing because when they arm thugs to help them win elections, these arms are not retrieved, so there are too many illegal arms in the wrong hands and these are poor people who have no other means of livelihood, no employment.
Poverty is high, security agents don’t have the tools or the morale to tackle insecurity
One is to address the social economic factors including poverty and unemployment, and equip security agencies with the capacity, training and motivation, to improve the welfare of security agents.
The Nigerian police at the moment don’t have the numbers to deal with insecurity; they don’t have the modern equipment, because the criminals have theirs in the bushes and they are better armed than the security agents.
We can counter this situation by making sure that arms in the wrong hands are withdrawn, security agencies are equipped with modern equipment and also address the factors causing poverty and unemployment that are putting pressure on young people to take to crime.
I have had interviews with arrested kidnappers who said they took to kidnapping because they needed money to take care of their families and also to get back at the government and society that does not care for them.
If we don’t address these socio-economic factors, if we don’t capacitate the security agencies, give them the equipment they need, build up their morale and then tackle corruption, because corruption is one of the things that has denied citizens social infrastructures, social amenities, funds meant to provide education, health care and all that is stolen by politicians, we will not be able to solve the problem of insecurity.
Look at the budget; just like I said, the budget for the National Assembly, the president sent a budget and they more than doubled their budget and the budget for security is nothing compared to the National Assembly. How many people are in the National Assembly? How many people are in the police?
These are all the issues that need to be addressed. So, when I talk about political will, it is for the President to recognise that we need to show commitment by doing things. Including adequately funding security, fighting corruption, equipping security agencies, and tackling poverty and unemployment.
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