Report: State Govts Now Doubt FG’s Capacity to Provide Security
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Nigeria’s sub-national governments have lost confidence in the capacity of the federal government to provide security amid rising cases of mass atrocities that claimed 4,558 lives nationwide in 2020, Global Rights, an international human rights organisation based in Washington D.C., has said. The organisation claimed that the reported cases of mass atrocities in 2020 represented a 42.9% increase above 3,188 incidents recorded nationwide in 2019, thereby making 2020 a brutal year for most Nigerians amid the outbreaks of COVID-19 and the eruption of #EndSARS protests. It reeled these figures in a glaringly damning report on mass atrocities across Nigeria released about 24 hours after a coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) asked President Muhammadu Buhari to step aside provided he could no longer fulfill his constitutional mandate. In its 24-page report titled “Save the Date: National Day of Mourning,” the organisation revealed that mass atrocities-related killings by region affected no fewer than 1527 (33.5%) in Northwest with Katsina, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, recording second highest after Kaduna. In Northeast, the epicentre of Boko Haram insurgencies, the report put mass atrocities-related killings at 1508 (33.08%), Northcentral 685 (15.03%), South-south 443 (9.72%), South-west 231 (5.07%) and South-east 162 (3.55%). While banditry claimed 1982, which accounted for 44.46%, the report said the insurgencies by Boko Haram and its splinter group, Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) cost 1173 representing about 26.30% of the total mass atrocities-related killings.
The report, also, put killings that resulted from communal clashes at 407 (9.13%), extra-judicial killing 271 (6.08%), herdsmen killing 270 (6.06%), cult-gang killings 247 (5.54), isolated killings 185 (4.15), mob action 12 (0.26%), politically motivated killings 7 (0.15%) and pirate attacks 4 (0,09%).
It ranked states of the federation that were adjudged extremely ailing and pathologically fragile to include Borno with 1176 cases of killings, accounting for 26.8% of the mass atrocities-related killings in 2020.
Also classified with fragile states, the report ranked Kaduna second with 628 cases (13.78%), Katsina third with 501 cases (10.99%), Zamfara fourth with 262 cases (5.75%), Niger fifth with 254 cases (5.57%), Benue sixth with 145 cases (3.18%), Delta seventh with 141 cases (3.09%), Plateau eighth with 139 cases (3.05%), Edo ninth with 118 cases (2.58%) and Adamawa tenth with 111 cases (2.45%).
Apparently judging from these indices of killing resulting from widespread banditry, insurgency, communal clashes and intractable farmers-herdsmen conflict, the report claimed that the state governments seemed “to have registered their dissonance and lack of faith in the government at the centre to provide security leadership. “
Supported with incontrovertible evidence, the report observed that the decision of the governors of Southwest states to establish the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) codenamed Operation Amotekun was, for all intent and purpose, a vote of no confidence in the federal government’s ability to secure their states.
Also, the report buttressed its claim with nationwide citizens’ frustration with the state of affairs, which it said, was palpable throughout the year and especially in October 2020.
Specifically, it noted that the #EndSARS movement was “not just about police brutality, but about insecurity, and social injustice. It was a cry for good governance starting with one theme. Other citizens led movements on security that elicited viral hashtags included the #NorthernLivesMatter movement, and the #SecureNorth protests.”