Borderless

IT was a horrifying independence anniversary gift suggestive of a slide into the state of anomie last Monday night as 48 students of three different institutions were gruesomely shot and hewed to death in a dawn to dusk massacre in Mubi, Adamawa State. The assailants were so confident of their invincibility and the security forces’ vulnerability that they took their time to call out the students, had them identified before shooting them to death or slashing their throats. The operation was said to have lasted over five hours, but while the carnage was on, the security operatives kept their distance from the hostel. There was no attempt to save the hapless students by those paid to ensure security of lives and properties. It was only after the deed had been done that the state police commissioner, Mr Geoffrey Okereke;Commander of 23 Armoured Brigade, Yola, Brigadier-General John Nwoaga, and the state director of the State Security Service (SSS) decided to relocate to Mubi.

But there are questions. Why did these security chiefs decide to shift their base? Was it to supervise the mop up exercise for the dead or to organise their burial? Isn’t their action akin to bolting the door after the horse has bolted? Do they expect the assailants to return to the same place so that they could walk into the trap of the security agencies? What exactly are they doing in Mubi now?

If indeed the killings were premeditated as reported, why didn’t the security agencies get wind of this? What happened to crime prevention? What happened to intelligence gathering? Must our security agencies be on the trail of evil perpetrators instead of stopping them in their tracks? What should Nigerians make of President Goodluck Jonathan’s independence address in which he said “Our security agencies are constantly being strengthened and repositioned for greater efficiency” going by the Mubi incident?
Many questions, no answer.

Last Thursday the nation was stunned by the confession of the authorities of the Nigeria Police College in Kaduna that an armed robbery suspect was among the new recruit constables undergoing training in the college. According to the commandant of the college, Alhaji Sanusi Rufai, if not for the recruit’s gang members who spilled the bean, the robbery suspect would have been certified okay to offer ‘protection’ to the citizens. If without the police uniform and an official gun the man was unleashing terror on hapless Nigerians, it could only be imagined the kind of ‘protection’ he would have offered the people had his robbery colleagues not betrayed their ‘espirit de corps.’

But how did it happen that a robbery suspect made his way into the police college? What kind of background tests are conducted on would be policemen? Is it every Olu, Bala or Chuks that applies to be a policeman that is admitted into the college? If a person is going to carry out security service, is it not incumbent on the recruiters to go the extra mile to ensure that the fellow is not a felon? Is it not mandatory that the employer should trace such a person to his roots to ensure that the one to secure the people is not himself a threat to their security?

The commandant loudly advertised his naivety when he said that “Some of the recruits have sight or hearing challenges, while a few others did not attend the schools the certificates of which they presented.”

Note that he was not talking about applicants; the commandant was talking about recruits. He was saying some of those who had already been offered admission into the training programme had hearing and sight challenges and some of them had doctored their credentials. He said those found out had been dropped, but it is a safe bet that some escaped being chalked out. What manner of policing will those with sight and hearing impairments or those parading fraudulent certificates discharge? Need we still ask the gods why the police cannot protect us?

Many questions, no answer.   

Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi at the House of Representatives last Wednesday declared that the country had no proper record of crude oil production. The CBN governor premised his submission on the discrepancies between the benchmark for crude daily productions and the NNPC’s figures.

According to him, “the benchmark for crude daily production is 2.48 million barrels for 2012, but what is the exact output? NNPC has said that 2.7 million barrels per day, but someone should ask NNPC if they have a metering system. We don’t have a metering system, to the best of my knowledge.”

But what manner of country will be at sea concerning the actual production figure of the mainstay of its economy? Why should there be arguments over how many barrels of crude oil we produce daily when some people have been saddled with that responsibility? If we are not agreed on our production figures, what then do we base our revenue calculation on? If the premise is wrong won’t the outcome be wonky? Are we still surprised why it seems the economy is headed for doom?

Many questions, no answer.

Last Tuesday, two traditional rulers in Ogun State engaged each other in fisticuffs at the Police Divisional Headquarters in Ewekoro Local Government area of the state. One had reported the other to the police for disrupting a cultural ceremony in his domain on account of which the police invited the duo. It was while the traditional rulers (both of who usually hold court to settle dispute among their subjects) were stating their sides of the story that one got angry and attacked the other. Not to be outdone, the other retaliated.

If traditional rulers are the symbols of our customs and custodians of our values, what message do these (mis)rulers send to the world about our customs and values? Isn’t a traditional ruler expected to be an epitome of excellence? Isn’t an oba or a baale expected to be refined? Isn’t a traditional ruler supposed to be a model of proper comportment even in the face of the worst manner of provocation? What kind of selection process threw up these discreditable traditional rulers who drag the exalted traditional institution in the mud? Are we still in doubt why the youth have scant respect for our traditional values?