"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
I choose to begin this blog with a controversial tittle with the above quote to mourn the deaths of many that have died since the insurgence of the faceless group ‘Boko Haram’, though I have being thinking before now, but the death of the mobile police man, on Tuesday, 14th February, 2012 in Kaduna state, brought out my silent thought, to thinking out loud, ‘how can unintelligent people (vast personnel of Nigerian Police/security outfits) deal with intelligence gathered by trained and specialized security outfits around the world(Interpol, CIA, FBI & SSS)’.
The on-going terrorist concern around the globe has brought even the mighty US security plans to questions, and Nations around the world are getting the best minds and heads to run their security, on both fronts: sourcing and execution. But back at home in Nigeria, it took boko haram that can be compared to a ‘boys scout’ outfit to expose the known vast corruption in our security formation. This corruption has been going on for years; from the process of recruitment to actual management of these personnel’s. It is no longer news that half of the men/women of our security outfits are not sound in character and learning, go around during recruitment exercises you hear of tales of thugs and school dropouts just walking to a business centre to fix up a school leaving certificate for themselves; you hear of stories of people paying over a #120,000 to get enrolled; boys & girls that do not even know what is human rights, some cannot take down your statements when you come to the station and so boring to be with; even as I write this I do not mean to insult the integrity of the many of them that are committed to their jobs, but of a truth the vast majority of them do not, some might argue that the high level of unemployment has contributed to this pseudo-life. Security men are supposed to be people that have the passion to do the job, not necessary because of the money, because they are the list paid, especially the police, check out your statistics anywhere in the world; but passion is the key, that makes them acquire the necessary skills, even if they lack paper qualification, however here in Nigeria, the passion is lacking across all sector of the society.
So as we continue to mourn the loss of life’s of both uniformed men and non- uniformed men; and the great concern from the international community, from the USA, to Germany and France, UK and Russia, all promising to help us out with intelligence, but the questions is who will execute such intelligence, is it the unintelligent men/women of both the armed forces/Para-forces, I doubt it?
Even as we call for reform in the oil sector, our security formation needs to be reformed; the citizen too must help the system, by enrolling only if they have the passion to guide and secure life’s, not primarily because they will be paid, but the joy of serving humanity. The government too must ensure that all this short-cut processes in recruitment are stopped, processes of checking validity of credentials should be introduced, and after all they clear politicians/high political appointee during their security check on them, why not on applicants to their formation.
There are many thoughts running in my head now…. however I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives…and many that will still be lost, if unintelligent men keep running our INTELLIGENCE UNIT.
