Skip to main content

The Real Nature Of Nigerian Security Agencies

January 4, 2012

Fellow Nigerians, what has been happening these three days has confirmed the earlier fear and observation that the Nigerian Security Agencies, comprising the military, police and others, are only Nigerians in name but far removed from the concept called Nigeria, its citizens, and the nation’s ethos.

Fellow Nigerians, what has been happening these three days has confirmed the earlier fear and observation that the Nigerian Security Agencies, comprising the military, police and others, are only Nigerians in name but far removed from the concept called Nigeria, its citizens, and the nation’s ethos.

Viewing the constitutionally-assigned functions of these agencies writ large, it is the general belief that members of these agencies must be subject to the civil society and must respect and protect all members of the civil society at all times. This general belief is applicable to Nigeria and even goes beyond this. The Nigeria Police has as its motto: ‘the police is your friend’, while the Nigerian military is charged with the sole purpose of defending the nation and its security. With these in tow, the question that should naturally arise is whether members of these security organizations have lived up to their billing; have the police and the military upheld the sacred trust that society demands of them?

The Nigeria Police motto of being the citizens’ friend has fallen flat and broken into smithereens like a shattered piece of china. Everybody is aware, and has been aware, of the overly obnoxious high-handedness and acts of criminality exhibited by members of this organization in law enforcement. People are usually arrested, sometimes for no visible reason, and then incarcerated in police cells, without trial, to the connivance of even members of the higher echelon of the police force. In some occasions, these incarcerated folks die in police detention and the police write off such as either,‘died in shootout with the police at the scene of an armed robbery’ or some other heart-rending circumstances the police want to invent in order to cover their criminal tracks. This is not to mention the series of extra-judicial murders committed everyday on Nigerian roads because the victim refused or demurred in parting with 20 naira. The rascality and hideousness of the police even extend beyond these. There have been occasions where policemen would round up some people and subject them to harrowing experiences that could even lead to death; and nothing happens after all these.
 
The atrocities of members of the Nigerian Armed Forces are no different. Like their police counterparts, these people are a law to themselves that one usually wondered whether Nigeria is in a continuous war situation. One wonders whether every available space in Nigeria has been converted to a battlefield. These military men and women beat up, maim and even kill civilians at the slightest excuse; they see civilians as that hideous enemy that must be eliminated at all time. They see civilians as people that would only be tolerated to a point beyond which such a civilian becomes an enemy that must be eliminated. This has been the military man’s interpretation of the functions he is constitutionally meant to provide.
 
Having seen all these, the question that arises is: must Nigeria continue to accommodate these devilish members of the Nigerian Security Organization? It may be argued that the military and police had not been trained properly in their various training schools. There may be some modicum of merit in this argument when one considers some of the statements credited to some senior members of these security organizations. In the heat of the present Boko Haram menace some of the police and military officers had said something to the effect that members of the public should help in providing information on the activities of the Boko Haram members. One deduction from this statement is that the military and police seem to have lost it as far as intelligence gathering is concerned. What has happened to the recce sections of the military? What has happened to the plainclothes section of the police? Would these security organizations expect that people would freely come up to them in the comforts of their offices to give them information on the movements of the Boko Haram members?

Beyond this indiscretion, however, one would say that the Nigerian police and military training institutions have not deviated from the global syllabus of training for the police and members of the armed forces. Overall, the real case here is that members of the Nigeria Police and Nigerian military know the correct code of conduct and that is why they usually excel when called up for international duties organized by the United Nations, for example. The conclusion one would therefore draw is that members of the police and the military have deliberately embarked upon the odious course of action all in the vile attempt to continue being a thorn in the flesh of civilians; and the motive for this is that they see the civilians with the goggles passing through only beams of a deep-rooted irreconcilable hatred. And the reason for this overflow of hatred is what one cannot fathom.

And this shameful course of action by these men and women has seriously extirpated their ability to carry out their constitutional duties of maintaining law and order and protecting the security of the nation. Anybody who controverts this assertion should just sit down and recall and recount the conduct of members of this organization in combating the menace of the various groups of terrorists now gaining inches of the nation’s territory with each passing day. Even the Inspector General of Police has confessed to the fact that the Boko Haram terrorism is something new to the police and that they are having trouble checkmating, if not exterminating, members of this terrorist group.

another shameful admission by the Inspector General has necessitated the need by the Nigerian Federal Government to begin to mull over the possibility of hiring foreign security agents. Should this become the case, then one should ask whether the same Federal Government would continue to keep members of the Nigerian security organization in its payroll. Maybe keeping them in the nation’s payroll would be to have them as hitmen and women charged with the continuous killing and maiming of civilians as has always been the case, including the present killings that are beginning to rear their ugly heads in all the theatres of protests by civilians against the removal of oil subsidy.
 
This latest brutality by these Nigerian security organizations should be the last straw that has broken the camel’s back. It is on this account that I solicit all Nigerians never to give up or rest on their oars in this nascent struggle to reclaim Nigeria; and ridding the nation of these rascals and thugs in Nigerian military and police uniforms must be one of the conditions the protesters must put on the table in any negotiation. Nigerians are tired of this spate of brutality by the police and military. What Nigeria should ask for in any negotiation, apart from the fuel subsidy matter, is for a phased demobilization of members of the military and police and the replacement of these by dedicated, honest and patriotic men and women; and at the moment, there are thousands of very well qualified able-bodied men and women who can replace all these rascals in police and military uniforms.

As these protests continue, members of the police and military are warned that their actions are being closely watched. Some of their colleagues are already members of secret groups charged with collecting evidence regarding brutality to protesters. If those policemen who have committed some murders so far think they can get away with them, then they better have another think coming. Their identities are already known and all evidence surrounding the murders are already recorded. Any military or policeman that will kill protesters will have no hiding place for he/she will have to face the music later on. The time for making civilians objects of brutality and cannon fodders is gone.

Let the flame of this nascent revolution continue to burn until Nigeria is reclaimed from these agents of Satan!

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });


Long Live men and women of good will!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
 

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });