Editorial: Mr. President sir, your people are dying!

The security crisis that has continued to afflict many communities in the Southern Kaduna stretch of the country has clearly gone on for too long and may presently be getting out of hand. Mr. President Sir, your people are dying. And it should bother you!

It is further troubling that the expansion of the challenge has come at a time when the Nigerian nation has in President Muhammadu Buhari, a reputed no-nonsense General as helmsman in the country. If he cannot fix it, then who can? This is a refrain that we encounter once in a while on the streets even as the continuing gale of attacks is among other failings, clearly leading the nation down the path of helplessness and haplessness. And it is even more distressing when it is considered that the refrain is one that neither provides succor nor answers, particularly for the troubled victims, who now live in daily fear of their lives being whimsically snuffed out any other minute, in the land of their birth.

For those who suggest that the Southern Kaduna challenge and indeed all of the nation’s security challenges today are being over-emphasized and go on to counsel that we should ‘calm down’ over our anguish and rage, they tend to point to several factors to justify their position, including these. They argue that the security forces have since been deployed to the area. They contend that the area is large and unwieldy, and therefore difficult to police. They contend that many of the indigenous people of Southern Kaduna who have clearly come to be pictured as being more often than not, the victims in these assaults are not completely innocent and that they also give out fire themselves. They equally surmise that these are incidents of communal clashes and herdsmen/farmer clashes that should be addressed on the face of things. And then they also spell it out that the gale of crisis predates the current administration.

While there may be some conjectural merit in some of these responses, the fact of the matter is that they are, all things considered, not fully convincing and satisfying responses that would compel us to drop the ball. Southern Kaduna is part and parcel of the territory of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The region and its inhabitants require and deserve all the peace and tranquility that their membership of this commonwealth should provide. Restoring this promise, and not providing copious explanatory notes is all that would satisfy the people and the rest of the nation. The Nigerian constitution clearly outlines that the primary business of government is to address the security and welfare concerns of the citizenry. Anything short of this is begging the issue.

This then is why it is very troubling that the body language of both the government of Kaduna State and the Federal Government of Nigeria have arguably been less than urgent even in the face of this most troubling security imbroglio. It is either there is unexplainable silence where there should be reactions or at other points, there are responses that tend to demonstrate inconsideration and a general lack of care, empathy and feeling. On the contrary however, we are talking of lives here, and human lives at that, and nothing should be spared to guarantee their sanctity.

So what is going on? Is there something that we need to know that we are not being told? These are Nigerian lives Mr. President. The people deserve to know what is going on, more so when they are in the direct line of fire of the evil, rampaging horde that now sets upon them, very boldly and almost without a care, seemingly assured that they have the whole territory in their complete grip, to pillage and plunder, and the inhabitants to maim, kill and devour, at will. It is frightening. It is tragic. It beggars belief. At the minimum, a man should know what he is dying for!

It is equally distressing that elsewhere in the country; the security challenge continues to literally snowball. Only last week, 14 people were killed in Kotonkarfe in Kogi State and the Borno State Governor’s convoy was reportedly attacked. For a nation that is not engaged in any formal act of war, the frequency, spate, scope and span of these attacks and security incidents are to say the least most troubling. It is one that would ordinarily task even the sleepiest of administrations. But we are seemingly carrying on as if these are only casual acts of happenstance. God forbid.

Also quite inexplicable is the continuing demonstration of faith by Mr. President in the competence and capacity of the present crop of service chiefs in the land. As heads of security agencies at a time like this, the onus clearly lies on them to justify the expectations of the people to be secure in their own land or be fired when they are not seen as clearly doing so. Against widespread calls for this simple course of action to be followed through, President Buhari has continued to stubbornly insist that it is his remit, and his alone to hire and fire his key security personnel. While no one is contending with him over this, this insistence also has to be put in the balance of the other ground variables. Is our security situation at the moment a satisfactory one? Do the people being maimed and killed daily in the land not deserve better protection in the same land that President Buhari is presiding over its affairs? Mr. President Sir, your people are dying and this newspaper does not like it.