By Reno Omokri
Senator Ned Nwoko means well. However, if Nigeria allows all citizens to bear arms freely, we will create a cure that is worse than the diseases and may end up worse than Somalia. Look at the way we threaten each other on social media. Imagine that we had guns. Seun Kuti and Peter Okoye could have cancelled each other.
What Nigeria needs is state and community police, or these abductions will keep happening.
The Office of the National Security Adviser is overburdened by too many duties. And in fairness to the current NSA, he is doing an amazing job in challenging circumstances. But our sub-national units must now play their parts.
Because I do not see how schoolchildren will be abducted in Kuriga, Kaduna state; and people from Kaduna, including those elected and appointed in and from that state, will blame the National Security Adviser.
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu inherited hell. Under Buhari, over 400 terrorists escaped from Kuje prison. They attacked the Nigerian Defence Academy. And they wiped out whole battalions of our army.
It is very easy to forget where we are coming from. We are coming from hell. We are not in heaven yet. But we are no longer in hell.
In the US, UK and EU, if there is an abduction of schoolchildren or similar crimes at the local level, it is not even the state police that handles the situation. It is the local police of the town that swings into action. If they cannot handle it, only then do they invite first the State Police, and then the FBI.
If you ever watched First Blood, you saw this play out. The Sheriff of Hope town 8£ Washington state, Will Teasle, arrests John Rambo. But when things get out of hand, he calls in the National Guard units of Washington State (which are controlled by the Governor of Washington State), and eventually, the Federal Government sends in Colonel Sam Trautman.
The Office of the National Security Adviser should be focused on conflicts and stresses between Nigeria and other nations and national security issues, like the proliferation of small arms, organised crime at a national and global level and threats to critical national infrastructure, such as our airspace, waterways, interstate highways, dams and power grid, as well as what happens on our continental shelf.
They should also be responsible for Nigeria’s cyber warfare capabilities, signal intelligence, and telecommunications and postal security.
Finally, that office ideally should keep an eye on our food security and our energy security.
The ONSA will be overstretched and put under too much pressure and stress if they have to be responsible for security at micro units of Nigeria, such as towns and villages.
Our founding fathers realised that Nigeria was too large and diverse to have only a central police, which is why our pre-independence constitution allowed for regional and Native Authority police. We had Yan Doka in the North and Oloja in the Western Region. Yes, that was abolished by Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi after the January 15, 1966 coup. But circumstances demand their return.
If we are afraid that Governors will abuse state police, then we should give them powers of arrest and withhold powers of prosecution from them. Prosecution of certain offences should only be by the federal authorities in the states.
If there had been community policing, the Kuriga abduction would not have occurred. Because community police will know members of the community and the local terrain. If they see strange faces, they will be suspicious. But how can an Efik or Ijaw police officer know who is a strange face in Kuriga?
