Nigeria: The growing business of private armies

For anybody who thinks that the now degraded Boko Haram menace is Nigeria’s most significant, present security challenge, this column reserves heartfelt sympathy for the indulgence of misreading the signs of the time. This is just as the ongoing outrage against the nation’s critical oil and gas infrastructure in the Niger Delta zone, by militants fighting for control of resources in their terrain,is hardly the most treacherous factor militating against the nation’s economy. While it may be true that these crises are disturbing enough as to generate revulsion in any patriotic Nigerian who thinks ‘Nigeria First’(no reference to Donald Trump intended please), they are nevertheless within the realm of resolution as their characteristics are discernible.

Of a more disturbing nature is the complement of numerous groups of armed individuals who owe no allegiance to the state, but are disposed to deploy their arsenal in pursuit of sundry private interests, ostensibly for personal gains. These are more or less private armies, that operate for their own gains or can be hired at a price for nefarious purposes. The danger from them is accentuated by the fact that they not only proliferate in virtually all parts of country, but are even mostly concealed from the attention of both the general public and the security agencies.

In the context of the cliché that the enemy you know is better than the one you do not know, these private armies constitute a bigger danger to the country than the traditional theatres of conflict as they carry out on a daily basis, series of isolated, deadly and insidious attacks which are often attributed to some other culprit(s). They clearly demand more attention than they are presently getting, as their nuisance value far outweighs the problems from theotherwise exposed foes.

A pointer to the under-rated proximity of the threat from these private armies to the average unsuspecting Nigerian, derives from the audacity with which these agents of mischief now carry out their nefarious activities including acquisition and trafficking of firearms into the country. It is a well-documented dispensation that the country is awash with illegal firearms from several sources; a situation that makes the instance of a recent seizure of a cache of 661 pump action rifles by the Nigerian Customs Service a child’s play.

Incidentally while the recent action by the Customs may still remain significant, it actually fits into a pattern of audacious attempts by illegal gun runners to route their wares right under the noses of the security services, through the formal processes of regular business. For instance, in 2010 the country intercepted a shipment of fire arms and other explosive ordinance en-route from Iran and on transhipment through Nigeria, ostensibly to Hamas in the Middle East. That development was tied to concerns that Iran might have been trying to route weapons through Nigeria as a corridor to its Hamas ally. It is significant that an Iranian suspected to be behind the action was arraigned in a Nigerian court of law.

Also in 2014the South African government intercepted and seized a total $15 million in two tranches of $9.3 million as well as $5.7 million, all believed to belong to Nigeria, and were intended for arms purchase in the open market. The fact that the transactions were intended to by-pass the routine process of official arms purchase, raised diplomatic dust. In 2016 another huge consignment of firearms was intercepted in Kano, under controversial circumstances.

Given the celebrated porousness of the country’s borders, either on land or sea, it does not require the attribute of clairvoyance to assert that the reported instances constitute only the tip of the iceberg with respect to the syndrome of illegal inflow of sophisticated weapons of destruction into the country. As is common knowledge, fire arms of various categories are routinely smuggled into the country through several decoys such as second hand Just as bees gather where there is honey so the proliferation of these private armies indicate the presence of good business for them in Nigeria. Firearm assisted crimes in Nigeria have in recent times spiked to a level that earned for the country an unenviable position on the watch list of the civilised world,as a highrisk destination for foreign visitors vehicles, textile products, building materials and including sand or gravel laden trucks as well as any item that is big enough to mask the identity of such dangerous weapons and accessories. This is without prejudice to the unrestricted flow of assorted weapons across the country’s northern borders, courtesy of the political crises in Libya and across the Maghreb.

Yet, a more ominous dimension of the country’s burden of private armies is their disposition towards commercialisation of their operations. Just as bees gather where there is honey so the proliferation of these private armies indicate the presence of good business for them in Nigeria. Firearm assisted crimes in Nigeria have in recent times spiked to a level that earned for the country an unenviable position on the watch list of the civilised world,as a highrisk destination for foreign visitors. While out of patriotism it is tempting to debunk such categorisation of Nigeria by any country, especially the US whose new President Donald Trump is by his idiosyncrasies, fast turning out to be perhaps the most potent danger to world peace than all the hoodlums in Nigeria put together - the fact cannot be disputed that if left uncurbed, the outrages of the private armies in Nigeria will spell nothing but unmitigated disaster for the country, sooner than later.

That is why the country needs to devise new options for fixing the problem. For as is clear, the traditional laid back disposition of the government and citizenry to potential dangers which have the potential to upgrade to apocalyptic dimensions on the scale of the Boko Haram, needs to be addressed. And the starting point is to review the causative factors and nipping same in the bud.

Private armies especially the non-state actors among them, easily emerge and thrive in an environment where the central government has failed to demonstrate a capacity for asserting itself in the maintenance of law and order, which in any case remains the primary purpose of government. With the failure of governance at least two scenarios emerge. In the first place is the situation where fear gripped citizens, seek protection and may resort to self-help by acquiring fire arms of their own, or engage non-state security providers for relief. These are easily provided by the private armies.

In the other and more dangerous angle, business minded, armed hoodlums who peddle mischief and terror as merchandise, easily make themselves available to be hired for jobs in assassinations, kidnaps and intimidation. These are the ones that carry out own or delegated jobs in crime, and are in high demand during election seasons, when they find easy use as political thugs.

Without equivocation, much of Nigeria is in the state with collapse in governance and therefore provide breeding grounds for these private armies. Hence the unabating daily reports of cases of kidnappings, robberies, muggings and assassinations. There are even stories where ‘victims’ of crime are reported to have either planned such attacks on themselves or abetted same in order to benefit from the proceeds of the operations.

It is also easily recalled that in recent times, politics related killings have increasingly featured the beheading of victims, even after such have been killed. This is believed to be due to the new system of compensating assassination rings, which is based on the number of human heads an assassin presents, as evidence of a job well done.