By Prince Suleiman Adinoyi
The chronology of Nigeria’s major security crises reveals a troubling pattern that aligns with geopolitical and electoral cycles.
Under GEJ, the Chibok schoolgirls were abducted. Under President Buhari (Northern President), the Dapchi (Majorly Northern) schoolgirls were abducted, and then comes President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (Southern President), the Orire (Southern) Girls were kidnapped.
It’s funny that, these catastrophic events routinely occur as election seasons approach. A critical evaluation of this timeline suggests a clear reality that insecurity in Nigeria has been thoroughly politicized. These events always appear engineered to ridicule the incumbent president seeking re-election, sending a calculated signal to the electorate that the commander-in-chief has failed, thereby forcing them out of power.
This touchlight us to a fundamental concerns to indict oppositions with the menace of insecurity as no incumbent president would deliberately stage a security collapse to prove their own governance failure and oust themselves from office.
It is a known fact that the state possesses immense power. No insurgent or bandit group can thrive for more than 24 to 48 hours without the government knowing exactly who is responsible, who is funding them, and where they operate. In fact, successive administrations have sometimes openly admitted to knowing some top personalities who sponsor terrorism in Nigeria. However, the real question then arises “If the government knows who the perpetrators and sponsors are, why has every single administration failed to take decisive action”?
The state has the resources, the manpower, the intelligence apparatus, and the technology to crush these threats overnight. Yet, they refuse to unleash this power on the perpetrators or their sponsors. So why?
Perhaps the simplest explanation applies here could mean “thieves do not catch themselves”. Maybe the ruling party and the opposition, the top government officials and the sponsors of banditry, are simply birds of a feather. They know what the common people do not know. Maybe, they have sold the peace of Nigeria at the altar of their collective greed and selfishness.
When you look closely, the various political parties in Nigeria may just be a smokescreen. The political class behaves like a single cult divided into different fraternities. They fight viciously among themselves for the mantle of power, using the blood and safety of citizens to paint the rival group black so they can present themselves as the “better option.”
Maybe the party currently in power may refuse to deal ruthlessly with the perpetrators because their own hands and heads were stained with similar acts when they were in the opposition. It is now looking like a vicious cycle of mutually assured destruction among the elites, leaving the common man to bear the brunt.
Thinking critically about this, it becomes clear why getting Nigeria on the right track feels nearly impossible. The “Messiah” we desperately pray and canvas for might end up being worse once they step into the Presidential Villa.
If we examine the trajectory of the country from President Yar’Adua to Goodluck Jonathan, to President Buhari, and now to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the pattern is undeniable that “Nigeria is migrating from a worse yesterday to a worst today” and the only logical solution would be to elect a totally detached and untainted individual.
But the ultimate tragedy of the Nigerian predicament is that the system is so opaque, that “we don’t even know who is who anymore”.
– Prince Suleiman Adinoyi writes from Lokoja.
