By Dr. Adoyi Onoja
Governors Umara Zulum of Borno State and Samuel Ortom of Benue State are the two faces of what should be security and what is security in Nigeria.
Go to Zulum’s Borno State to see security or wellbeing – the type most Nigerians voted for begining in 1999 – in action. In the 36 states and 774 local government councils structures in Nigeria, this security is the minority report.
Go to Ortom’s Benue State to see “security” – the type the political elite including their military, intelligence and law enforcement (MILE) collaborators sanctioned by virtue of Section 14 subsection 2B – in action. In the 36 states and 774 councils structures, this “security” is the majority report.
Most Nigerians didn’t send the military back to the barracks in 1999 for their elected/appointed replacement to excel in the type of security that is the forte of the MILE. There is no doubt that the insertion of Section 14 subsection 2B into the 1999 Constitution represented this vision of the MILE in the post military era.
This is the security that failed consistently until 2015 and consistently convincingly since 2015.
Most Nigerians send the military out of power in 1999 so that the Zulum type security or wellbeing would be replicated in all states and councils through governance or the effective and efficient utilisation of human and material resources for the benefit of most people. This thus should represent the civil rule interpretation of Section 14 sub section 2B.
This is the type of wellbeing or security with the potential to reduce to the barest minimum the crisis and conflict that is the pretext for the military’s presence. This will ensure that the are retired into the barracks permanently.
The just concluded constitutional amendments did not give the need for a civil rule signature security model any thoughts. This is in the believe that Section 14 subsection 2B sufficed for the political elites and their MILE minders.
And for most Nigerians, “security” is inside the waste bin/archives bound National Security Summit Report(NSSR)2021. The NSSR is the legislatures’ equivalent of the executives’ National Security Strategy(NSS) 2014/2019. Both documents were wrongly premised as they put the “security” cart or strategy before the non-existent “security” horse or policy.
The air-of-contentment-for-a-job-welldone-look on Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila’s face on the day the NSSR was unveiled said it all: security for most Nigerians is here and it is in more guns and more boots.
Security is NOT a one-sized-fit-all model as the failure within Nigeria of the last twenty-two years of the military type security and the yet-to-be evolved civil rule type security is making clear on the one hand and on the other hand the Ukraine-Russia-Western Crisis is demonstrating.
What is and should be security under civil rule must, of necessity, be different from the military perspective of security not only because the military’s security type failed to secure most Nigerians in the preceding twenty-two years of representative rule. This security type governs a very narrow sphere of the society within the 1999 Constitution.
To borrow a leaf from the philosophy embedded in one of the six points area of focus in former President Obasanjo’s proposal for an Africa Narrative Club initiative, “we must stop to live by and on received ideas, ideologies, beliefs and standards foreign to our culture, cherished beliefs, our philosophy and our worldview and understanding.”
To this end and to a large extent, security as we understand and practiced it in Nigeria did not derive from Nigeria’s extant history, experience and reality. This security was borrowed from the outward appearance of western practice which elevated the work of the military, intelligence and law enforcement as security.
As I noted in my use of Ekeh’s two publics, even this borrowed western security concealed its true meaning with its outward practice which enticed and seemingly deceived most of the uninitiated among Nigerians.
The only meeting point or confluence and thus universality of security for all countries and cultures of the world is its etymology of SECURE. How SECURE is translated into practice is a function of each country and culture’s history, experience and reality (HER).
However and for Nigeria, there is a showpiece of the HOW in the Zulum model. The Zulum model is an island in the sea of the Ortom model. The Zulum model should be replicated in the 36 States and 774 Councils and the talk of “security” challenges and thus invoking what has arguably become the executives’ sole sacred task in Section 14 Subsection 2B will be laid to rest.
The time for civil rule to construct its security or that which secure most Nigerians is NOW.
The clock of uncertainty is ticking and thickening every second as the legislatures wilfully demonstrate insensitive on the matter which falls within their schedules.
This is the case with the first phase of its constitutional amendments even as Speaker Gbajabiamila promised the second phase of amendments in an electioneering season.
Prof. Onoja is a Professor of African History at the Nasarawa State University, Keffi
