All we hear from our politicians lately is to tie the present wave of banditry and incessant attacks, kidnappings, wanton cases of murder, rapes and other high profile criminal activities to the 2023 elections. These apocalyptic and bizzare acts is are not part of any election season. Lots of people with diverse backgrounds believe insecurity will threaten the 2023 elections. The 18th Governor of Benue State, Samuel Loraer Ortom who was engaged in a raving feud with his counterpart in Bauchi State and former FCT Minister, Bala Mohammed. Ortom had branded him a Fulani terrorist after Bala Mohammed encouraged the herdsmen to carry AK-47 and other sophisticated guns. Governor Ortom accused Bala Mohammed of being part of the plot to assassinate him.
The attempted assassination of Governor Samuel Ortom is actually an existential threat Nigeria. If these hoodlums had succeeded in their heinous evil plans to kill him, the core foundation of Nigeria could have been rocked to its baseline. Besides, killing of a Governor from any of the geopolitical zones by bandits, herdsmen or hoodlums will shake the geopolitical foundation to its foundation. I reckon it won’t be a good sight to behold because such zone may likely explore easy options suited for them to exit the country. The escalating State of insecurity is certainly worsening the already troubled economy that’s standing on a K-leg. My sincere worry is that the APC leadership and Presidential Advisers are fiddling idly while Rome burns.
I still don’t get it why Mr. President would rather host an elaborate reception for 2 PDP decampees that moved to APC while Governor Ortom screamed blue murder for an attempt on his life. Having such an elaborate event to host Dimeji Bankole and Gbenga Daniel at a time of national emergency looks bad really. Our Development Partners who are supporting Nigeria to the hilt are watching and perhaps wondering if Nigeria is serious about governance as they understand and know it from other climes.
It was Governor Nyesom Wike that drove the nail right through the coffin while the likes of Governor Bunu was hallucinating on how the APC will govern Nigeria for another 32 years. Wike had pronounced a hardline consequences if the Benue Governor gets assassinated. The reactions of the IG and Presidency on the matter came too little, too late. One would have expected the IG and the Presidency to rally the security at the slightest breach of security of a sitting Governor, notwithstanding whichever State the Governor comes from. With the appointment of new service Chiefs, should we still be telling these stories at this time? Beyond the talk about security of high network persons in our country, what exactly are we expecting from our security henchmen when secondary schools have become serial targets for hoodlums to engage in forceful abduction of our children while we stand aloof clueless of what to do? Like I had written earlier on banditry, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of justice need to urgently embark on the stringent reviews of our criminal justice system to avoid rapists, car jerkers, criminal herders, kidnappers that kill Innocent people not to get a slap on the wrist when they commit heinous crimes any longer. A tough criminal justice system and perhaps death penalty for the criminals that take lives in the course of their criminal operations.
On the nation’s economic front, the potentially dire consequences of our national economic outlook have begun to manifest in serious troubling ways especially by the escalating insecurity around the country. There must be a strong national economic Platform to articulate a longterm social and economic development framework with a broad acceptance by critical stakeholders to provide a pathway towards fixing the dangerous malaise that has too long mitigated against attaining Nigeria’s full national potentials. Such economic operating framework wouldn’t be a product of politics or tools for politicking, but there must be a foundation for a national rebirth as has been in other developed climes. It’s now obvious to the blind and dumb that the era of bazaar economic jamboree is over for good. The era of dependence on oil is also over because the world is moving away from the extractive economic model towards a knowledge economy model that prizes technological innovation and market place of ideas over heavy industry and trade in natural resources. Nigeria is entirely at the mercy of fluctuations in the global price of oil at a time when it’s increasingly obvious that prices are on downward trend that’s no longer sustainable. We must.be resolute as a nation in our dogged determination to overcome these daunting challenges. We must move in due haste as a nation to pay attention to socioeconomic trends around the world.
