INSECURITY: NIGERIA 🇳🇬 WITNESSING SIGN OF STATE FAILURE ~EDWARD PWAJOK, SAN, LB

Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and former member of the House of Representatives Hon. Edward Pwajok, in this interview speaks on the deteriorating security situation in the country among other issues.

*_Do you think having death penalty for kidnappers would resolve the reoccurring issues of criminality in the country?_*

Let me answer in this way, by starting with some questions to you who is a journalist and to the media in general. For us to properly understand these issues, it is important to pose some of these questions to the relevant authorities. We should ask the government and particularly the security agencies and the police, how many kidnap suspects they have, that is those suspected of being kidnappers? How many have they prosecuted, how many have been convicted? From there, you go to the Ministry of Justice and find out how many suspected kidnappers they are prosecuting in various courts, and how many they have been able to convict. I am starting from that angle because I just read a report that a US government agency found out that over 8600 Nigerians were killed during violent attacks last year alone. Now, how many persons are standing trial on account of those attacks. So, we need to be scientific in our approach; that is why I am saying that the media has a role to play; we need to know whether they have been able to identify the kidnappers, whether they are with the Police, whether they are in prison or they are at large. If we just say let us slam death sentence on kidnappers, how many kidnappers are now standing trial; it may even be that some people are playing to the gallery, because if you don’t have persons that are standing trial, so it is a cosmetic pronouncement; at the end of the day, nobody will be convicted and nobody will be executed. So, to me we have to put the horse before the cart. That is to say, let us strengthen our intelligence gathering mechanism, let us strengthen our crime fighting mechanism. You and I know what is happening in today’s Nigeria; the Minister of defense said everybody should go and defend himself. The implication of that is that government security has failed; if the security has failed and you are now coming with a death sentence for kidnappers, that shows that we are at the mercy of kidnappers; it is only God that can save Nigerians. For me, the number one thing that we ought to be doing is not just strengthening or tightening the punishment, we need to strengthen intelligence gathering in Nigeria; by doing this you will be able to know who the kidnappers are. For example, if you go to beer parlours, brothels and super markets, you will see those who ordinarily have no visible means of income or livelihood but they spend outrageous amounts of money. That should raise some suspicions in the security agencies. They should be able to investigate that this person is spending beyond his income, where is he getting his money from. We have had that kind of information before on account of kidnappers because the kidnappers when they kidnap their victims and collect ransom, they spend the money either in beer parlours, brothels and supermarkets by spending profligately, some of them even talk freely when they get drunk, that will enable us get information. Are we doing that in Nigeria today? In our various communities, may be somebody was barely feeding but suddenly you see him driving expensive cars, nobody in the community even the traditional ruler will not raise eyebrows, do you know whether that person got his money from ransom from kidnapping? I am raising these issues because the government and security agencies ought to take them seriously and it is not just an issue of strengthening the punishment. I told you that over 8600 persons were killed in Nigeria and the punishment for murder is death; has it discouraged people from killing their fellow human beings; it has not and the reason is because there is no prosecution. You are a Journalist, find out, how many people that have been killing Nigerians; they call them either bandits, insurgents, militants or Fulani criminal herders; find out how many of them are being prosecuted. For me, issues of insecurity should be taken seriously and let government do the right thing, that is my take.

*_The Senate recently called for the declaration of state ofemergency on the security sector following the kidnapping of students ofGovernment Science Secondary school in Niger State, is that the way out?_*

That will not work. If you declare state of emergency, it means you have the tools to do things extraordinarily. What is the strength of the Armed Forces? If you declare state of emergency, it means you are going to deploy and strengthen the Armed Forces to certain areas to overwhelm the criminals in that area to restore normalcy. Today, we all know that the Armed Forces and the police are over stretched, their manpower is not enough. The Military are in all the states of the federation to the extent that if there are attacks in some areas, even if you invite the military to go there, they do not even have sufficient personnel, so how effective will the state of emergency be? If you declared state of emergency, let us say there are some forests where some kidnappers reside or criminal herders reside; they will go there in full force and take control. Do we have sufficient number of the military to do that? To me, the Senate should have engaged first with the security agencies to find out what should be done to declare state of emergency. State of emergency means you have to take some extraordinary measures to now go and overwhelm the criminals. But in Nigeria, it can be abused because you now have some security personnel that will now use the state of emergency to deny Nigerians their fundamental human rights; some may even take some people’s properties in the name of state of emergency. They should tell us what they exactly mean by state of emergency. Are you removing somebody from office, that will be illegal, what are you going to do, let Nigerians know pursuant to the state of emergency or what will the National Assembly invest in the security sector to now say we are declaring state of emergency; they are not very clear that is why I am afraid that it can be abused.