Mixed Metaphors: Different Wars, Same Warrior

Strangely, in northeastern Nigeria, there is a state of emergency in three States, but you would not know it from the regularity with which the militants continue to inflict mayhem and misery on communities. The same thing is happening in the central portion of the country

For those who have some difficulty understanding how Nigeria has come to be stuck in quicksand, a review of two similar scenarios may be helpful. First, the security file. Last week, as the country prepared for yesterday’s elections in Osun State, the military arrived in full force. I fully support the necessity of security throughout Nigeria, but it is unclear how overrunning a state with detachments of heavily-armed soldiers is the same as providing an atmosphere that is conducive to a free and fair election. Law and order is a police, not military, activity.

Strangely, in northeastern Nigeria, there is a state of emergency in three States, but you would not know it from the regularity with which the militants continue to inflict mayhem and misery on communities. The same thing is happening in the central portion of the country.

In both scenarios, surviving Nigerian villagers have been mercilessly displaced from the lands of their fathers.

It would seem that those two are locations where disciplined and professional security forces would be deployed. It is a mystery that they are preferred in a menacing profile in a state election. Not only can these soldiers discourage voters, their presence gives the impression that Nigerian democracy is untenable unless supported by the threat of military action.

But drafting the soldiers into Osun State came the same week as the military resumed the battle to correct its diabolical image as serial human rights violators.

Following the emergence of yet another video showing Nigerian soldiers carrying out summary executions, military spokesman Chris Olukolade announced the emergence of yet another panel to authenticate it and identify the perpetrators.

Amnesty International had published the gruesome footage and confirmed that the killers were indeed Nigerian soldiers.

“Much as the scenes depicted in these videos are alien to our operations and doctrines, it has to be investigated to ensure that such practices have not crept, surreptitiously into the system all to the detriment of expectations, in line with best practices to which the nation’s military has committed itself,” Olukolade said in a statement.

Note the word, surreptitiously. The general, trying to give the impression that his employers are accountable, recalled that a Joint Investigation Team had similarly been set up in the past to look into similar allegations contained in another scandalous video. He did not say anything about the report of that panel, if it did submit one, or what was done with it.

Although there have been several reports of the same kind in the past few years, a few of them on videotape, the spokesman was probably referring to a 2010 incident.

Responding to that report at that time, the then Brigadier Olukolade absolved Nigerian soldiers of being involved in the captured activity, published by Al Jazeera The video showed extra-judicial executions of unarmed civilian suspects in the wake of Islamist fundamentalist violence in Plateau State.

He dismissed the footage, which was circulating wildly on the Internet, as “nothing but a wicked manipulation aided by application of current advancement in computer technology.”

I have no intention of denigrating the Nigerian military, but it often behaves as though it is an army of occupation, as if it is superior to the citizens they are supposed to be defending, and as if its men are beyond the law.

In a previous comment, “What Is the JTF, And On Whose Side Is It?” (August 2012), I observed that JTF was often accused of brutality and human rights abuses. For the agency to be successful, I argued that it has to ally with the people.

“A true JTF acts within, not beyond the law. Does JTF care when civilians are killed? If JTF is the best protection that desperate civilians can get in areas where they are looting, raping and brutalizing, what does that portend for the future? When members of JTF act outside the law, who evaluates them, the JTF? When they brutalize and kill the innocent, who sanctions them, the JTF?”

Two years later, the same questions continue to apply to the security forces in general. Force is meaningless outside the context of law, which is why force that is applied extravagantly yields neither peace nor security.

If Nigeria’s security agencies fail to operate professionally and lawfully, it is the entire country that suffers. It is not a crime to draw attention to this, nor is it a virtue to ignore it.

Second, I turn to the menace of the Ebola virus. Nigeria seems better prepared for this attack than she usually is.

Following the death in Lagos of a Liberian national, Patrick Sawyer, Minister’s Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu disclosed that his Ministry had taken various measures to contain the virus, and was collaborating with other ministries, agencies, international organisations and the Lagos State government.

The response included efforts to trace and investigate air travellers Mr. Sawyer had come in contact with; placing all ports of entry into Nigeria on red alert; posting health specialists to all entry points; and equipping government tertiary health institutions to handle any emergency arising from the disease.

It is also worthy of praise that President Goodluck Jonathan quickly set up an emergency operation centre, under the coordination of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and an interministerial committee.

If all of these measures are actually in place, Nigeria should be able to cope with an outbreak, if any. The problem is that we usually overreach ourselves in such matters, with facilities and procedures found not to be in place.

Last week, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa an “extraordinary event,” and declared an international health emergency.

“The possible consequences of further international spread are particularly serious in view of the virulence of the virus,” it said, and WHO Director-Deneral Dr Margaret Chan called it the “most complex outbreak in the four decades of this disease”.

Things like Ebola do happen. For Nigeria, the challenge is that we really do not have a health infrastructure that is ready for an outbreak, should there be one.

This experience is therefore another reminder of Nigeria’s need to invest in Nigeria. We respond to Boko Haram by calling on the world to help us. We respond to corruption by calling on the world to help us. We respond to the challenge of development by calling on the world. We respond to Ebola by calling on the world.

The truth is that a country with the size and resources of Nigeria is a country the world-or at least West Africa-should be calling upon. All we have to do is plan ahead, and deploy public resources into providing for the public. Is there is a warrior for that war? ·sonala.olumhense@gmail.com <mailto:sonala.olumhense@gmail.com>

·Twitter: @SonalaOlumhense