Governance And Security In Kwara -Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo
Perhaps man would have preferred to live alone undisturbed by others, if it would have been safe to do so. But Thomas Hobbes in his book, Leviathan, penned the evergreen state of man in the state of nature. His evergreen statement of man’s life in the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, and short”. I thought deeply about this claim of 16th century British philosopher.
One can imagine billion of men on earth living alone outside community or society. This means man will not be gregarious, there will be no social interactions that will depend on compassion, love and understanding. Man will depend on might for survival and everyone will be for himself and individuals will provide for his or her own needs especially, security. In such state of nature, there would be no life enhancing opportunities like all means of transportation, housing, social interaction, etc, as we have in modern life. The imaginary life in the state of nature must be very miserable.
To avoid the terrible life in the state of nature, political theorists like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Thomas Rousseau developed a concept of an agreement among individuals surrendering part of their freedoms, interests, including their might to a sovereign authority for the protection of all. It is this theoretical agreement, called social contract, that explains the basis for the legitimacy, moral and political authority in the society.
This agreement is even more practical and symbolic in periodic elections in democracy. Ballot box and our votes symbolize the donated power of individuals given to the elected and it forms the basis for the legitimacy of the exercise of powers of the elected over the people. If the State monopolizes the possession of legitimate means of violence today; it is because we have agreed to give the elected the power to do so on our behalf. It is election in a democracy that transforms one of us to be the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation of Nigeria. Donated power makes the legislature to make laws for the protection of life and properties and the social contract makes the judiciary to sanctions inappropriate behaviors that engender insecurity, the outcome of which will not allow for human dignity and progress.
Nigeria is governed by Constitution and not by the rules of the thumb. That is why Nigerians ordinarily enjoy some bundles of rights, the most germane on the discussion of insecurity; the subject-matter of this paper, are sections 33 and 35 that talk about rights to life and personal liberty. Rights to life to the black race is not a creation of the European or even to the earlier examined writings of some philosophers. Right to life has religious foundation, whether in the Bible, Quaran and in traditional religion. The colonialists may make some fuss about the level of our development when they came in contact with us, they have not been able to claim that they taught us how to live together as humans.
The first man that killed his brother in the Bible received appropriate punishment of being made a vagabond and a wonderer. If right to life is enshrined into our Constitution, it is really in line with a belief taken for granted by all human societies. Security of life and properties therefore is the first duty of Government and that is why we have government and people in government.
But I write about Kwara state and our security challenges putting our government in the pigeon holes of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I have a very powerful belief that we should not allow for literal and strait jacket interpretations and operation of our Constitution. Implementation of any document, constitution inclusive, may be environmental, individual ability and focus determined. Defective as our 1999 constitution may be, is there no room through which some environmental solutions can be provided to secure the State of Kwara, without necessarily offending the provisions of our constitution? The creators of Amotekun in the South West, Nigeria, have devised a means of security of their people outside the provisions of the Constitution without infringement. I do not believe that we should throw up our hands in helpless exasperation and claim that our hands are already twisted by the provisions of the Constitution.
The questions are; despite the inadequacies of our constitution, what can Kwara do to secure our State? Yes, there may not yet be State or local police in existence in the country, what else can we do? Our governor since he does not have absolute and decisive control of the Federal Police, may claim that he is merely a gloried Chief Security Officer of Kwara State. But despite that, is there nothing concrete that can be done under the circumstance?
Power is divided in Federalism, especially between the state and the federal governments. And in the Federation of Nigeria, where there is the Supreme court decision on the autonomy of Local government; Local Government Chairman is the Chief Security Officer of his domain of governance and influence. I have read some opinions about the helpless situation of state governors in Nigeria being glorified Chief Security Officers of their states. I believe that the governor of Kwara State is the Chief Security Officer of our state and the Chairmen of Councils are the Chief Security Officers of their respective Local Government Areas.
We need to know that being in the appropriate situation to secure our state or environment does not only have to do with the control of the Police, Civil Defense, Directorate of State Security and other security agencies, directly controlled by the Federal Government.
Our Governor appoints Security Advisers, which has nothing to do with carrying guns or in charge of the control of troops. In the security parlance, there is the kinetics and non-kinetics operations. While the kinetics deals with the troops’ control, the non-kinetics is in the areas of intelligence gathering. If the governor appoints a Security Adviser what are the assignments attached to the portfolio? The problem with the Governors’ appointment of Security Advisers are wrong choices and wrong purposes. Apart from the facts that Security Advisers do not have appropriate training for the portfolio, they are often appointed by the governors to do political hatchet work for him. Thus, Governors do control the Federal Police to intimidate opponents, but they cannot control them to curb the rising waves of criminality in the State.
Secondly, our governor is the only one in the whole of Kwara State to hold security meetings with the heads of the Army, Police, Civil Defense and DSS. Emirs, Obas and religious leaders cannot hold such officially recognized high security meetings for state wide protection. If the governor is not the Security Officer of Kwara State, why does he hold such high-level security meetings? The question that we now need to ask, is what are the outcome of such high-level security meetings in the security architecture of the State?
The most important evidence of being a failed Security Chief of the state, is this budgetary allocation and near hundred percent release of billions of naira for security purposes every year. A study of budgetary allocations and release of fund since 2003 shows yearly increase of this vote in all our yearly budgets. Many times, what our government budgets for security votes are more than our budgets on education, agriculture, health and rural developments. If the governor is not the Chief Security Officer of Kwara state, why the security votes? Studies have shown that between 2003-2018, governments of Kwara State spent N15b on security, representing one billion naira per year. But since the emergence of the present administration, the government sits on billions of undisclosed security votes. Yet, we face the challenges of acute insecurity in the state.
If the security votes increase annually, where does it go? If security vote is so important to the governor, where is the security of life and property in Kwara State? During our studies, the little pieces that we could put together shows that, in Kwara State in the last three years, N666m had been spent on security, but within the period, the sum of N1.619 was spent on honorarium? Honorarium to who? Is it as sitting allowances at the security committee meetings or to some other interests outside the meeting? Government needs to come clean on the issue of security votes in Kwara. Even on the net while many states disclosed the amount of security votes annually, that of Kwara State is blank. If the government will not disclose how the votes are spent, they should still allow the citizens to know the budgeted provision. However, the bottom-line is that whatever figure the government comes out with on the issue of security votes in Kwara State, where is the security?
We need to know however, that the management of security vote is the opaquest in the history of public financial management in this country. No matter how high the security vote of government, it is often not questioned by the legislature or even subjected to audit scrutiny. It is one vote for which our governor owes us no duty of accountability. While the convention is reasonable and germane to the security of the state, it is often opened to serious abuses. I agree that the money given to pastors, Imams and traditionalists for prayers of protection, or the one given for sacrifices of various types of animals may be part of this money. If the issue of security is too sensitive to be disclosed, where is the outcome? Governors have reduced security votes to some stealing instruments.
Now we come to the actual security situation in Kwara State. In Isin Local government area, people have been kidnapped and killed in Isanlu-Isin, Iwo, Odo-Eku and Olla. Millions of naira had been paid in ransoms in that local government. In Irepodun Local government Area, many people had been kidnapped and killed in Agbeola-Oro, Agbele, Omu-Aran, Rore, etc, Millions of naira had been paid as ransoms in that Local Government. In Ekiti Local Government Area, many people had been killed and kidnapped in Obbo -Aiyegunle area including the King of Koro that was killed. Millions of naira had been paid in ransoms in that local government. In Oke-Ero Local Government, people had been kidnapped in Idofin and millions of naira had been paid as ransom. In Ifelodun, people had been stolen or killed in Oro-Ago, Owa-Kajola, Sagbe, Babanla, Alabe, Idera. Communities like Ganmu Ahileri had even been deserted to some unknown destinations to face uncertain future outside their homes. Millions of naira had been paid in ransoms. In Kwara Central people had been killed and kidnapped in Asa. Millions of naira had been paid as ransoms. Even in the urban, in the city of Ilorin, kidnappers enter houses to steal people and ritualists kill as if human blood means nothing again. In the Kwara North, Baruten, Kaima, Patigi and Edu local government areas are under the siege of bandits and kidnappers. Millions of Naira had been paid in ransoms and several lives, lost. Even in Patigi Local Government Area, the community of Ndanaku had been completely deserted.
In some local government that are yet to be attacked by the kidnappers and the bandits, fear of when it will be their turn to be attacked is too probable. The fear has disrupted economic and social life in many of our local areas. That is the security situation of Kwara State today. Our Kwara!
With the above developed scenario, locals have taken their fates in their hands. When there is failure of government security outfits, local militias have developed, communities and individuals are their own local governments, funding public schools, roads, water and now, security.
Now, we come to how government policies aids and sustain banditry and kidnapping in Kwara State. We need to note the trends of attack of the kidnappers and the bandits in Kwara State. The attack is mostly rural based. The attacks are usually along the roads leading to villages in the rural areas. As lives in the rural areas is dreary as a result of absence of economic activities, kidnappers and bandits have taken over the roads leading to rural communities. Kidnappers and bandits consider our villages as sleeping communities. They know that rural communities may have their money made through their sweat on the farm and if they do not have, they have their sons and daughters in the urban that would raise ransoms to satisfy the insatiable desire of the ruthless bandits and kidnappers. There should be no pretense, kidnapping and banditry in Kwara State, is a rural based criminality. When 90% of the state resources are spent by the Chief Security Officer on the corner of the urban, with complete disregard of the rural areas, the situation as we see it in Kwara today, is a foregone conclusion. When even the local government fund has always been seized by the Chief Security Officers for a long time, it is expected that our state should be captured from the periphery by the bandits and kidnappers.
Criminality and banditry are Siamese twins, they move and act together. The current Chief Security Officer of Kwara state even has an obnoxious policy of urban renewal that is beneficial to the state capital at the expense of the rural poor. Urbanization when it is not diligently controlled, means complete neglect of the rural area with the attendant consequences. With urbanization, we may have inadvertently opened our flanks to crime and criminality, the type that is prevalent in Kwara State of today.
Imagine! Let us imagine that there is life in most of our rural areas in the form of small-scale economic ventures, agricultural hub that congregate population into farming communities, social life that is peaceful and pleasant, infrastructures that are modern, environment that is technologically friendly and driven; these marauders will certainly not have a secure haven in our rural areas. If government can use security votes for resettlement programs of communities that cannot witness modernization as a result of adverse location, banditry and kidnapping shall be greatly reduced. Non-kinetic thinking by government on our security challenges will ultimately be better than the purchase of many guns.
But let me conclude this write up by sparing my thoughts and fears on this stubbornly unending insecurity in Nigeria. With its international dimension, could it be, that some conspiracies are at work to cancel Nigeria? With its Islamic bending, but indiscriminate attacks on both Muslims and Christians, are they questioning the purity and piety of the present practice of Islam and want to establish an empire or Caliphate of their own purity? We need to be very circumspect and be guided by uld it be, that some conspiracies are at work to cancel Nigeria? With its Islamic bending, but indiscriminate attacks on both Muslims and Christians, are they questioning the purity and piety of the present practice of Islam and want to establish an empire or Caliphate of their own purity? We need to be very circumspect and be guided by history.
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