September 15, (THEWILL) – At a time, the Federal Government underscored the seriousness of insecurity in the North-West geo-political zone by deploying a combat outfit comprising security chiefs, top military brass led by Chief of Defence Staff, General Chris Musa, alongside the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle to Sokoto, comes this disturbing disclosure by Governor Dikko Radda of Katsina State.
Katsina is one of the seven states in that zone, alongside, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Kaduna, Kano and Jigawa, that has been under severe attacks by bandits since the immediate past administration of Bello Masari.
According to the governor, only 32 police officers are patrolling one LGA in the state.
In an interview with DW Hausa Radio last week, Governor Radda said the LGA comprises 10 wards and over 200 villages and among the 32 officers policing the place, only nine guns are available, with just five operational.
The governor did not name the local government for obvious security reasons. Yet Katsina State has known no respite from bandits for many months now. During Masari’s time, 10 out of the 34 local government areas were under attack and control of bandits.
In February this year, bandits reportedly killed Sanusi Hassan, the commander of the Katsina Community Watch Corps, seven watchmen and some residents in Kankara LGA.
In another attack, bandits killed six people in Faskari LGA. In June, the police command in the state said gunmen killed about 20 people in the Gidan Bofa and Dan Nakwabo communities in Kankara LGA.
In July, bandits abducted about 26 people in Runka town, Safana LGA of the state. Remember Kankara LGA? That was the town where over 340 school children were kidnapped in 2020 and released one week after.
So, by his lamentation of the security situation, almost a fortnight after the recent deployment of a special security outfit to the North-West, the governor has raised a big question on the organisational structure and combat readiness of the security outfit. There is more.
Coincidentally, the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, last Wednesday added a dimension that paints a picture of the depth of official seriousness with insecurity in the country. The IGP stated that the police will deploy 35,000 personnel to complement 8,000 soldiers and other security agencies for this weekend’s governorship election in Edo State.
This sharp contrast in allocation of personnel is telling and indicative of how the authorities prioritise security matters in Nigeria.
Doubtless, insecurity is pervasive during elections, what with thuggery, ballot box snatching, voter intimidation, bribery and other criminal acts that have consistently characterised virtually all elections held in the country since the return to civil rule in 1999. But this is often due to the elitism surrounding the conduct of elections in the country, right from voting, declaration of results, contestation of results and adjudication by the courts.
At any rate, Nigeria with a total police strength of 370,000 officers at 1:600 citizen-police ratio, is under-policed and the Nigeria Police Force overstretched. Pulling almost 10 per cent of the force for an off-season election in a state in one week with a repetition of the exercise in another one month when the Ondo governorship poll will be due, is nothing but an exercise in diversion that ends up weakening its capacity to enforce law and order.
This is so because past experience shows that many of the policemen on duty during elections are ill-equipped to effectively deal with the security challenges posed by desperate politicians and their hirelings. Many policemen have been reported, particularly during the 2023 general election, to lack walkie-talkies to call for back-up in the event of an outbreak of violence, while some of them helpless look the other way when overwhelmed by sponsored attacks by politically exposed persons.
The point is that the governing elite must get its priority right in the management of the affairs of this country. This is the powerful message that this contrast in Governor Rada’s lamentation and IGP Egbetokun’s disclosure shows.
How it was possible for the authorities to deploy 30,000 policemen, 8,000 soldiers and other paramilitary forces in immediate response to areas of persistent kidnapping like in Southern Kaduna, Zamfara and some other similarly troubled spots in the country, more lives would have been saved from kidnappers and the message of deterrence sent to the daredevils.
