“Do
not wait for calamity to provoke your humanity” OGI
"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.
From
the city of Lagos Nigeria, to the Niger-delta States still in Nigeria, West of
Africa, Rwanda in the East, Pretoria in the South, to Dafur-Sudan and Southern
Sudan in the North, is the echoes of the
word, ‘we want to live well’.
Who
doesn’t want to live well? The vast majority of us here in Africa hope to
experience life to the full and make the best of each opportunity available
here at home, we do not all want to abandon our home land, to go and stray in a
land not ‘meant’ for us, our believes, values or culture! But the threat, to
all of these hopes is the hydra headed monster insecurity.
Looking back over the
events of the last decade, it is striking how many of the decades’ disaster
could have been avoided with better information and communication. For tens of
thousands of people, crisis arrived suddenly unannounced. Over the last decade
I have learnt the needs for accurate information and genuine commitment in
passing such information on any issue or crisis because it is the only hope of
ending such crisis. Most intervention in the past decade from what I have gathered
as a social worker has never considered that; and at the heart of all crisis is
the youth; the economic and social
conditions that promotes youth problems needs to be addressed in context with
young people’s need and desires.
From armed conflict to natural
disaster, to now psychopaths ideology of religious radicals in the name of God
fighters, humanity has not really lived to its name, empires, wealth and power
has been acquired through hypocrisy, many has hide under the mask of religion
to deceive the weak, promising a freedom, they themselves do not have, while
their real motive has been power & wealth though. My concern for putting
together this journal is not really about international politics but that which
concerns me most is the crisis of insecurity that is rocking the world. On
September the 11th 2011 the whole world heard and saw what happened at the
world trade centre but few heard of the crisis that took place in Jos-plateau
state Nigeria few days before then I was volunteering with the Red Cross at an
IDP campaign in a small town called Daudu-in Benue state where victims from a
boundary clash were receiving support from the Red Cross on food and non-food items
donated by spirited individuals across
the globe through International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), it was while we
were serving humanity at this camp that a distress call came from the city of
Jos some 1000 km from Daudu. That violence has broken out in Jos, resulting in
loss of life and properties of a magnitude not witnessed in that city before that
day a city with the appellation of peace and tourism in Nigeria, it was a major
crisis that our Red Cross volunteers in that city could not come out to help
because they themselves were in danger, so it was time to draft some volunteers
from nearby location; then the call was made for 12 elite volunteer
from our end to go; I saw the married think twice when the Senior Field officer
gave the situation analysis and the brief for the operation; as a young man that have never seen a live
crisis operation I was excited to go
help and I see for myself what I have heard, read, and watched on crisis. I never knew what I was
volunteering myself for, but that single event in my history changed my life forever
and I have not regretted the decision to go that day. It was fun on the way to
the City of Jos not until we were 20 km away from the city and I started
hearing sporadic gun shots my first live experience of gun shots, being watching
a lot of ‘James Bond’, ‘the Unit’ though but I saw it live, it was then I knew
am in for a life threatening experience.
I leant something about
humanity on the first day, we got to Jos and I kept wondering… as I saw a kid
of about 10yrs setting vehicle on fire, and quickly I remembered I once read it somewhere that we have no
future without children, so what future do we have with such delusional
kids, my fear was real because 10 years
down the line in Northern part of Nigeria this children are the ones causing us
pains and havoc; we are all witnessed to the aftermath of the 2011 general
elections; the next scene was heart breaking,
a pregnant women butchered close to her car (Role of Mother Hood) it was
a sight for me; just a week into our stay in Jos with the many horrific sights
I saw, I forgot the days of the week, all I knew was night and day; after each
day’s work it too the story of one of the volunteer who was a veteran of Nigeria Civil war (Biafra war), to
make us sleep with the many tale of the civil war and why we were still serving
the displaced in Jos, with little or no sleep at all, we woke up to the news of
the world trade centre 11/09 2001 bombing, it was the television footage that
made me remember the day and the date of month we were in. That is what war and violence could do to a
sane person.
On this day (Sept 11th
2001) my resolve to be for peace and promote same in my generation changed for
life. But my concern after a decade is that much has not improved, Jos is still
in crisis, and the war against terrorism is still not over even with the
killing of Osama Bin Laden, the world is still not safe though better. Here in
Africa and Nigeria leadership has failed, we now have a threat in Boko Haram in Nigeria, a group now linked to Al Qaeda and many
extremist group around the globe but a bigger threat in the Alhimajiris this
unschooled, unskilled and religiously ‘unbalanced’ Children scattered across Northern Nigeria.
Our security here in
Nigeria is still porous, as I keep mourning
the deaths of many that have died since the insurgence since the 9/11
decade and now the faceless group ‘Boko
Haram’, though I have being thinking before now, but the death of many police
men, soldiers and security agents and
civilians across the Nations, 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 across the globe compared to the services they render 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; after all there is
processes used in clearing politicians/high political appointee before they get
the jobs to see if there exists anything of security concern, why not use same
on applicants seeking jobs in various their security formation.
There are many thoughts
running in my head as I pen down this journal; however I mourn the
loss of thousands of precious live and many that will still be lost, if
unintelligent men keep running our INTELLIGENCE UNIT.
Summary
The
solution to this global crisis is to adapt human security model an emerging model,
used to further broaden the understanding of global vulnerabilities, whose
proponent challenges the traditional notion of national security, by adding a
human face to security. Over the years, the values we shared as our brother’s
keeper, has gone into thin air, our leadership has failed us, they have failed
to create an enabling environment for businesses to grow, but the question and
lesson I have learnt is that what are we doing as Africans to better our lot?
For
some time now, the African society keeps over protecting the younger generation
from values and discipline. We keep demanding right without responsibility and
this is resulting into a heartless generation that do not care for one another,
or value human life, a selfish generation and that is not our way, our way is
to help one another, our way is to ‘never leave a partner in a fire’.
If
Africa must develop, we must do something to protecting one another, security
and development are inseparable, the millennium development goals (MDGs) of having
a multifactor, human-centered vision of development cannot be achieved, if
there is no security, if we cannot tolerate ourselves, diversity must be
promoted with sincerity.
Lesson Learnt
·
There cannot be right without
responsibility.
·
Indeed there can never be a
future without children, however children with responsibility!
·
The solution to various crises
here in Nigeria or any other part of the globe is to tolerate ourselves and
promotion of diversity with sincerity; the answer is not the cry for international
aids or peace keeping forces.
·
The solution to all these tribal
woes in Africa is a birth of true nationalism.
(Extract from my work Journal: I was Born here...So must work for its survival (2001-2011)
