The new face of insecurity
Sometime in July last year the Nigerian Army said it had defeated the Boko Haram insurgents especially in consideration that there were no longer camps of the terrorist group anywhere in the North-Eastern part of the country.
Army Spokesman Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman said this while addressing journalists at the inauguration of Strategic Communication Course for senior officers at the Nigerian Army School of Public Relations and Information, Bonny Camp, Lagos. Assuring Nigerians that the military was winning the war against the insurgents, he said there were no more terrorists clustered in a particular place in the area.
The situation in the North-East has tremendously improved. The military operations against terrorism and insurgency in the North-East, Usman said, is hinged on three things: “Defeating Boko Haram terrorists which has largely been accomplished; facilitating humanitarian assistance which is ongoing; then restoration of law and order for good governance to take place.”
According to him, the roads that were hitherto closed due to terrorist actions are now open to the extent that “we have trans-border trade. Take for instance; just recently, the important road that links Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon was just re-opened. We have come to the point that we can beat our chest and decisively say we have dealt with Boko Haram.’’
But if the Nigerian Army can beat its chest and decisively say they have dealt with Boko Haram, the same cannot be said of other emerging security threats that now sprout everywhere in Nigeria like mushroom on decayed soil. Indeed, the new face of insecurity has assumed hurricane dimensions in different parts of the country. Each region of the country seems to be faced with a particular security challenge. While the South- East is contending with the menace of kidnappings, the South-South is bedevilled by pipeline vandalism caused by the Niger Delta militants. In the North-Central and some parts of the North East, herders and farmers engage in deadly clashes over grazing land that has led to killings and destruction of property worth millions of Naira.
There is also the threat posed by cattle rustlers, especially in the northern part of the country.
While all these are going on, armed robbers are also on the prowl in different parts of the country with several innocent Nigerians falling victims. All these have been worsened by the influx of illegal arms into the country. Several cases of interception of illegal arms have been recorded by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) both at port of entry and on transit within the country, with some maritime observers hinting that many of such illegal consignments have also escaped into the country through both land borders and sea ports.
The most recent case recorded by the NCS was the seizure of a truck carrying a container loaded with 661 pieces of pump action rifles. The truck with registration number BDG 265 XG conveying the 1x40ft container was intercepted along Mile 2 on the ApapaOshodi expressway in Lagos.
The deluge in arms trafficking has been attributed to the fall out of regional arms conflicts in West Africa and Libya where weapons used in the armed struggles end up in other countries such as Nigeria with rising cases of violent crime. The developments were also inflamed by political militancy where politicians employ firearms to further their electoral campaigns, hence fuelling political violence as well as illegal arms imports.
With the countdown to 2019 general elections drawing nearer, security experts are worried that if left unchecked the new face of insecurity in Nigeria would pose an even greater challenge than Boko Haram ever did.