Every country that aspires to elite status in the league of developed countries is usually clear about one thing: that security is an irreducible ingredient that goes into the making of that status.
It is until people feel safe and secure within a country and are able to have some degree of certainty over the safety of their properties and interests at all times, people cannot really be said to enjoy the citizenship of a developed country.
Nigeria’s independence in 1960 could not have come at a better time. Four years after Nigeria discovered the ‘black gold’ in the fields of Oloibiri in Bayelsa State, Nigeria’s wrists finally wrenched free of colonial shackles. As an independent country whose independence was won not by the barrel of a gun but by the tenacious tides of the time, Nigeria went on to hit all the right notes for seven years until the cataclysmic civil war of 1967-70 when darkness swooped on an entire country and has never managed to lift since then.
The war may have officially ended in 1967 but it has never really ended? The factors that foisted war on a fragile country remain as ferocious as ever and everyday now, they still lurk in the corners waiting for the perfect opportunity to flare into flames and force a stream of blood to issue.
While sections of Nigeria continue to insist that it is time for the country to be broken into its different component parts, the blood that was let during those years when a brutal and bloody internecine war blazed through a country have never really failed to leave Nigeria’s hands soiled.
In the last ten years, terrorism has come to form a key cog in Nigeria’s utterly excruciating experience as a country. What Boko Haram started like some heinous joke in 2009 has since become a source of many existential problems for the country.
Bandits have since bulldozed their way into the grim conversation to up the ante of attacks on defenseless Nigerians.
Children and their families have been torn apart as communities have been forced to learn new ways to survive the surge of terrorism that has been as sudden as it has been savage.
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, insecurity has become the topic of a raging debate in Nigeria. All around the country, people are genuinely concerned about how rampaging insecurity would affect the outcome of the 2023 general elections. Would people troop out to vote? Would people feel safe enough to vote? How much can the integrity of the elections be guaranteed given that many people would be forced to vote under an atmosphere of insecurity?
Even as these questions rage, and return unanswered by those most complicit in fanning Nigeria’s most complicated problems into uncontrollable flames, it appears there is no let-up for the butchers who have continued to march through rural communities leaving a trail of death and destruction in this time and causing blood to flow.
On Sunday February 5th 2023, terrorists ambushed some local vigilante groups in Bakori Local Government Area of Katsina State while the vigilantes were chasing the terrorists to recover cattle rustled from their communities. The police has confirmed that at least 41 vigilantes lost their lives during the deadly attacks in an area that has been subjected to violent attacks in recent times.
For many of those who live in rural communities around Nigeria, Bakori’s story is a familiar one; of terrorists who launch lethal attacks on defenceless communities and go on to enjoy a field day; of heroic local vigilantes who get mowed down as they try to defend their communities and do what Nigeria’s security forces come up short in.
It is a measure of just how insecure Nigeria has become that every day news of attacks like this makes the round and people shrug it off as routine.
It is a mark of how vulnerable Nigerians have become to its many enemies that these attacks keep happening with nothing decisive done to end them once and for all.
With the 2023 general elections days away, how everyday Nigerians who have been most affected by these relentless attacks react to same will tell a lot about where the country is at the moment.
It is telling that none of the major candidates in the general election has yet come up with a definitive plan on how to tackle what is apparently Nigeria’s most pressing problem.
It remains scandalous that majority of Nigerians do not feel safe in their own country. Whoever wins the general election coming up later this month would have their work cut out for them.
But every voter at the election would have a chance to secure their own safety with their vote. It is a chance that cannot be simply passed leisurely or nonchalantly.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
