WHERE IS THE HUGE ALLOCATION TO SECURITY? | NIGERIA ...

Where is the huge allocation to security?
July 23, 2012 by Femi Makinde

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

FEMI MAKINDE examines the insecurity in the country vis-a-vis the? huge budgetary allocation to security

Nigeria has not witnessed bloodletting like it is doing now since the Civil War ended in 1970. There are fears that the things that led to the outbreak of the war in 1967 are now resurfacing.

The nation has been witnessing large scale killings since the return to civil rule in 1999. Religious crisis, ethnic strife, kidnappings, ritual killings and other forms of extra-judicial killings? are threatening to plunge the nation into a fresh civil war.

Plateau State has been under constant attacks, while Yobe, Borno? Kano and Bauchi Kaduna others are not spared.

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation in January warned that the nation had begun slipping into another civil war. He blamed the worsening insecurity on religious? intolerance and the belief by people in some parts of the country that the position of rulership belong to them.

Soyinka, who was reacting to the August 25? bombing? of the United Nations Office in Abuja and the attacks on churches in some parts of the North, including the Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic church in Madalla, Niger State, said urgent steps needed to be taken to redirect Nigeria from the path to fresh civil war.

Soyinka said, ?We see the nation heading towards a civil war.? We can no longer pretend it is not. When you?ve got a situation where a bunch of people can go into a place of worship and open fire through the windows , you?ve reached a certain dismal watershed in the life of the nation.

?There are people in power in certain parts of the country, leaders, who quite genuinely and authoritatively? hate and cannot tolerate any religion outside their own. When you combine that with the ambitions of a number of people who believe they are divinely endowed to rule the country and who believe that their religion is above whatever else binds the entire nation together, and somehow the power appears to slip from their hands, then they resort? to the most extreme measures.?

Insecurity has been on the rise since President Goodluck? Jonathan won the April 2011 presidential election. This made many to suspect some of those who contested the election with him.

But former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who lost the Peoples Democratic Party?s ticket to Jonathan has openly called on the Islamic group, Boko Haram, which has claimed responsibility for most bombings in the country, to come out for dialogue. He said the group and its agenda? would not be seen as serious as long as it continued? to remain faceless.

Atiku said,? ?If Boko Haram and its leadership have something to say; if they have any grouse against the Nigerian state, the proper thing for them is to come out in flesh and state it so that a process of dialogue that will eventually lead to the resolution of the crisis and the siege on Nigerians can commence in earnest.?

Also, the outgoing? President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN), in a speech he delivered in Ikere-Ekiti at the inauguration of NBA Ikere-Ekti branch,? said the continued? violence in the northern part of the country might end Nigeria as a nation.

Daudu, who lamented the spate of bombings and killings of thousands of innocent people by the group and reprisals blamed the insecurity on ?total? failure of leadership.? He urged Nigerians to call on the government to deal with the problem or allow? those competent to deal with it.

Criticising? Jonathan for embarking on a trip to Brazil when some parts of the North were burning, Daudu said it was a height of insensitivity for the President to? ?abscond?? while innocents persons were being? killed.

Comparing Jonathan with? Emperor Nero of the ancient Rome, the NBA? president said that Nero handled the crisis better than how the Nigerian President was doing. He stated that Nero did not run away? while Rome was burning? even though he was playing his flute. But he? said that what Jonathan did was worse than the action of Nero.

He said, ?Our situation is however different, our leaders don?t seem to care; even Emperor Nero of ancient Rome would have done better; at least he was playing his flute? while Rome burned, he was not said to have absconded.?

The NBA president who lamented that the Boko Haram insurgency had turned him to a displaced person because of the invasion of Kaduna State by the sect, said the association had also been forced to shift the venue of its meeting from Kaduna to Abuja.

Daudu said, ?Since the inception of democracy in 1999 till date, there has been unprecedented shedding of the blood of innocent Nigerians. If it is not sectarian based riots, it is community riots.

?The hapless people of Nigeria have been visited by cataclysms like the Niger Delta agitations, sharia riots, kidnappings, assassinations and all manner of crimes. In the face of all these happenings, what is the elected government doing? The answer is simple; government is only condemning these happenings just as we are doing. Surely, leadership demands more that mere lip service to the resolution of the current problem .

?To question the incompetence of government is to state the obvious. We have reached the precipice. If we don?t reverse the current direction then we might as well say goodbye to the nation as we know.? Be it known that it is Maiduguri, Damaturu, Kaduna, Zaria etc today, tomorrow we know? not where this madness and other effects of bad governance will manifest itself. I plead with all well-meaning Nigerians to call on the government to deal decisively with the problem or to allow others deal with it.

?Today,? Nigerians are refugees or internally displaced persons in their country. Are we in a reverse kind of evolution? Whichever angle we look at these problems from, it is indisputable that they are culmination of a total failure of leadership. Leadership that is proven to be corrupt. See the fuel subsidy scam, the purported probe by an arm of the National Assembly, allegations of judicial impropriety and corruption against the judiciary.?

Daudu said that insecurity had eroded the rights of Nigerians as enshrined in the constitution. He lamented that places of worships were no longer safe as Boko Haram had made them their targets every Sunday.? He said that it was intolerable to see people being killed because? of the failure of the government to protect them.

According to him, ?People, including children go out in the morning to work,? to places of worship, etc only to be dispatched in the most horrendous manner to the great beyond. What is happening to the? guarantee in the constitution to the right to life, to those supposedly granted rights of freedom of assembly and worship?

?Nigerians want to live in peace. Is it too much to ask for? The inordinate spilling of blood is the culmination of years of misgovernance, institutional injustice and corrosive corruption. These have deeply eaten into the Nigerian system like cancer.? To excise them requires delicate surgery by competent people who are dedicated to a resolution of the problems.?

Attacks on places of worships have not been restricted to churches. In Kano and Maiduguri, mosques have been attacked. Two weeks ago, the Sheu? of Borno, Umar Garba Abba Kyari, and the Borno State Deputy Governor, Zanna Mustapaha, narrowly escaped death when a 15-year-old suicide bomber struck in a Maiduguri Central Mosque.

The high level of insecurity brings to the fore the need to question high allocation to security in the 2012 budget. The House of Representatives on Thursday threatened to impeach the President over poor budgetary performance. One area, where the Executive will need thorough explanation is how budgetary allocation for security has been expended.

Source: http://www.nigerianbestforum.com/generaltopics/?p=124831

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