Tackling Causes of Insurgency - Orji kalu

I watched a horrifying and heart-rending video last weekend and my stomach wrenched. The video clip, which was sent to my phone by a friend, showed a very virile young man – tied hands and legs – with his assailants’ faces masked, brandishing two sharp knives, while something that appeared like a death sentence on him was being read. The victim looked vacantly and marooned as he awaited his violent death. After reading the ‘death sentence’ (for a crime I did not know) he was slaughtered like a goat, with his head severed and placed on his lifeless body.

Immediately tears welled in my eyes. A million thoughts ran through my mind. I became instantly speechless. Why should such a young man’s life be terminated so violently and abruptly? Was it a crime for him to be born in a country such as ours? What was his offence to merit such an ignoble and painful death?

The incident above paints a gory picture of what life has suddenly become in Nigeria. From east to west, north to south – the story is the same – endless violence and restiveness. Who will bell the cat? What does the future hold for Nigeria if these insurgencies and violence are allowed to go on unchecked? I can never stop asking questions.

I must confess that it was by sheer resilience that I was able to write for this column this week after watching the monstrous act in the video. From available statistics, many innocent Nigerians had been killed in a similar fashion since the insurgency across the country began some five years ago. Why have Nigerians suddenly become barbaric and unconscionable in their disposition towards one another?

What happened to the unidentified man in the video could happen to any of us. Bear it in mind that when a brother or sister suffers persecution today and we fail to stand up and defend them, then when it is our turn nobody will assist us. The monster called insurgency is alien to our country. Repulsive incidents, as the one under review, only used to occur in far-away countries such as Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, and some Arab countries. Definitely not in Nigeria! How barbarism, bestiality and other atrocious ills suddenly become a way of life for many of our people is a mystery I cannot explain.

It all, possibly, began when politicians and other powerful people in our society started arming youths to enable them to achieve their nefarious ambitions. It assumed a frightening dimension immediately after the 2003 general elections, when politicians became more desperate and daring.

Interestingly, desperation among politicians soared to high heavens as the largesse for holding a political office increased. Politicians are now ready to do anything to win election. That was the beginning of insurgency in Nigeria at the scale we now have it. Agitation for justice and autonomy among the ethnic entities in Nigeria also heightened with the advancement of our democratic practices. Sharing of national cake and political office became an issue, threatening to tear our fragile unity to shreds. There is no more brotherly love, no more patriotism, no more humanity. What rules our world today is greed; greed for political power; greed for virtually anything!

Since after watching that video, I have kept wondering what would become of this nation after our won generation is gone. The level evil has reached is such that it would even be better for God to destroy this world. Why should we continue to exist when we have lost all decency and humanity? When human beings suddenly turn to beasts what else is life worth living for? I feel weak and benumbed when I look round and see the preeminent position evil has assumed in our nation. The whole thing is just nauseating.

It seems doing evil has become a way of life for us. How else can we explain the notoriety evil has taken in our lives? It will not amount to any exaggeration should I state that Sodom and Gomorrah was better than Nigeria. We have more churches and mosques today than ever before yet evil has continued unabated. The major evil for which Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed was homosexuality. But is homosexuality not already a part of us, to the point that some people had the effrontery to sponsor a bill at the National Assembly for the legalization of same-sex marriage? What audacity!

There is no manner of evil that is not committed in Nigeria and by Nigerians – the most grievous being the taking of another person’s life. Judging by the pain in my heart, I would advocate an immediate action by the Federal Government to launch a decisive war against the reign of impunity in our land. All men and women of goodwill must come together irrespective of religious, ethnic or cultural differences and work for the stamping out of the evils that threaten our collective existence.

Imagine what will happen as we draw closer to the proverbial 2015. Those threatening fire and brimstone should bear in mind that Nigeria is greater than any one of us. Is it not a fact that we shall all die and rot away some day, but Nigeria will continue to exist? Why then do we dissipate too much energy doing evil? The sacredness of the human life is something that is non-negotiable. Those that snuff life out of others by sheer force and brutality should bear in mind that the day of judgement is not far away. The encounter between Joseph and his brothers in the Bible remains an eternal lesson. What would have happened if Joseph’s brothers had succeeded in killing him out of envy? Would they have benefitted from his exalted position as the Second-In-Command to Pharaoh of Egypt? In the same vein, who knew what the man killed in the video I mentioned above would have become if he had lived? Now see how our fellow countrymen wasted him in the name of insurgency or whatever name called.

The recent discovery of mass graves, tunnels and bunkers by the Joint Task Force (JTF) in Maiduguri tells a big story about the impending cataclysm. I have warned on several occasions in this column that some drastic measures need to be adopted to safeguard our nascent democracy and defend the sovereignty of our dear fatherland otherwise we are doomed. It seems nobody has heeded that call and things are getting worse.

The biggest threat to security of life and property in Nigeria is the proliferation of small arms imported into the country by unscrupulous persons for clandestine purposes. No single individual who imports large caches of arms into the country means well for it. It is only the police and other security agencies that are allowed to acquire arms, and this must be done in accordance with due process. Unfortunately, what we have today is a situation where every Tom, Joystick and Harry now brings in arms through our porous borders and deploys them as he deems fit.

It is true that these insurgents are better armed than our security forces. While police grapple with their obsolete riffles and disused vehicles, the insurgents brandish modern weapons. This makes me wonder where all the billions budgeted annually for security go. State governments are struggling to outdo one another in the donation of security vans and communication gadgets to the police. In the end what becomes of the equipment? The answer is simple: more crimes.

I was elated the other day when the House of Representatives called for the recruitment of more personnel to strengthen the security agencies to enable them to fight crime. My fear is that the more people we hire the more bag-carriers our politicians will have. It is not contestable that almost 40 per cent of our security agents are deployed for VIP protection – to the detriment of vital areas that require round-the-clock security.

It is worrisome that government has spent enormous resources trying to restore peace in volatile parts of the country without much success. It appears its efforts have not been able to produce the desired result, going by the heightening violence we have experienced all over the nation, especially in the north.

What then should be done to arrest the sad situation? I have given adequate thought to the issue and wish to state unequivocally that nobody has made any effort to attack the root-causes of insurgency. What are the root-causes? I think many of us already know. With the benefit of hindsight, let me list them: greed (for power and personal aggrandizement), injustice, poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, religious fundamentalism and bigotry, ethnicity, clannishness, and joblessness.

It is not my intention to expatiate on each of the causes, because we are already conversant with them. What I intend to do is to select a few of them for emphasis, in order to drive home my point. Unemployment among the youth is the culprit-in-chief. What do you expect would happen when millions of able-bodied youths leave school without jobs many years after graduation? A majority of the insurgents are youths between the ages of 16 and 30. From the video clip of the cold-blooded murder of the young man I mentioned above, it was easy to pinpoint the age bracket of the perpetrators of the frightening SinParties in our land. They would be between the ages of 20 and 30 years. From where did they get the sophisticated weapons they were brandishing? From where did they acquire the heartlessness to commit such a wicked act against their fellow countryman?

It must be stated at this juncture, that illiteracy is a contributory factor to the exacerbation of insurgency all over the country. The northern part is worst hit. The disparities in the recent cut-off marks released for admission into Unity Colleges tell the whole story of the gap in literacy between the North and South. So, to contain the rampaging youths in the North who easily fall prey to the attractions of insurgency the federal and state governments should mobilize them through skills and entrepreneurial training and other constructive means to keep them away from crime. We should adopt the Malaysian style of mini-industrialization through the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMIES).

Another way to deal with the situation is by working hard to destroy the Almajiri syndrome. Some powerful people are behind the perpetration of these heinous acts and find the Almajiris ready and malleable tools. By engaging them meaningfully the government will have cut a vital supply source of insurgents.

There was a time agriculture was the mainstay of our nation’s economy. This was in the 60s. Through it many youths were gainfully engaged, and restiveness was almost non-existent. With the discovery of oil came the present ostentation and revelry that characterize life in Nigeria. Then disparity in the gap between the rich and the poor grew wider, giving rise to the current cut-throat pursuit of wealth by the youth. The rising cases of crime are as a result of the greed among us, which prompts some people to seek wealth through illegitimate and illegal means.

As indicated earlier, politicians played a notorious role in entrenching insurgency in our national life. They taught the young, innocent, impressionable youths how to use sophisticated arms against their perceived enemies and to achieve other inglorious ends. Have you ever spared a thought why elections in Nigeria are like war? A typical election day is like a battlefront: thugs of all shapes and colorations, arms of different makes and grades, money in local and foreign denominations are flaunted by our high and mighty politicians to win votes. They maim and intimidate the weak, snatch ballot boxes and force INEC officials to tow their infamous path. Curiously, those that lost in the election head for the tribunals, while those that do not have the patience for litigation devise other crude means to vent their indignation and frustration. The youth used and dumped get frustrated and search for an alternative means of survival. Crime becomes an easy attraction. In the end what we have is a riotous and volatile society.

For those who do not know: one of the reasons security agencies seem to lose the war against crime is the infiltration of their file and ranks by dubious elements. Even the government had at a time admitted that the security agencies had been infiltrated by insurgents. If that is the case then who is safe? Since government is aware of this fact, what steps has it taken to contain it? It is a very dangerous development that requires a drastic action. How can you pay the enemy of the country to protect it? That is exactly what the government is doing by not weeding out the impostors in the security services.

Inequality in the distribution of national cake and political offices is a clear invitation to crisis. This is why I have always advocated the restructuring of the country to give every ethnic nationality its due rights and privileges. The current sharing formula shows some lopsidedness and is skewed to favour some ethnic groups to the disadvantage of others.

This brings us to the elected insurgents. Yes, elected insurgent. What do you call legislators that fight in the hallowed chambers of their assemblies, using dangerous weapons on one another? We should not forget that when the cow is eating grass her calves are watching her. By exhibiting acts of hooliganism and brigandage the legislators are telling the young ones that such acts are tolerable. And so, they are forced to practice it at a large scale. That is the crux of the matter. It is important that our lawmakers conduct themselves honourably and decorously to serve as motivation to the upcoming youth.

I do not find what is happening in our nation funny at all. By allowing the unfortunate situation to go on unchecked, we are just postponing the doomsday. It will get to a stage where the centre can no longer hold and, like Chinua Achebe would say, ‘Things will fall apart’. I pray God to spare this nation for the sake of the innocent and not curse us the way he cursed Chorazin and Bethsaida.