Okenyi Kenechi
If you are not officially afraid of Nigeria now, then you deserve my sympathy. Nigeria is currently going through a crisis. From ethnic agenda of land confiscation to the arrest of dissenters. The center can no longer hold. That’s why you need to be afraid because Nigeria depicts the characteristics of a failed state.
The war of words between the Nigerian Police Force and the Army over the killing of police officers carrying out a covert operation is an indicator that Nigeria is floating on water with no clear direction. Among other things wrong with the Buhari’s presidency, his inability to truly take charge is the crown on the head of his incompetence.
For soldiers to kill Policemen on duty and brand them, kidnappers, one is left to wonder how many innocent Nigerians Policemen and soldiers had shot and branded kidnappers, cultists or armed robbers. Nigerian Security agencies have raked up a notoriety for their anti-people’s stance, and the reactions of Nigerians over the murder of the police officers show the disconnect between citizens and security agencies.
I am a student of Nigerian Security agencies’ press releases which are always spiced with half-truths and extravagantly exaggerated lies. The press release by the army in its failed attempt to wiggle past the killing of police officers in Tarkum, Taraba State on Tuesday represents one of those extravagantly exaggerated lies.
Let’s go back to recent history. On February 23, 2019, the 26 battalion of the Nigerian Army stationed in Abonnema, Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers turned their guns against the very citizens they were meant to protect. An army Lieutenant died during a dispute on that day. The army changed into a war formation and rained bullets on the town. When the carnival of gunfire was over, 37 persons had been killed, most of their bodies found floating on the River.
Then Sagir Musa, the acting director of communications of the army, released a statement blaming the victims of their assault for their deaths. But there was more. While the hostilities lasted, some of the survivors were taken to a local hospital, but soldiers raided the hospital and arrested medical personnel and the injured leading to more deaths. Those who partook in that avoidable incident are still wearing their uniforms and receiving salaries. Nigeria is a country without consequences.
I am terrified. The entity called Nigeria is gone, and we are possibly on the last lap. But when will the police declare the Army, a terrorist organization like it did the protesting Shiites? When will the force label the Army a treasonable felon like it did some protesters?
While the Taraba incident provides a peep into the business of security in Nigeria and the lies crafted in press releases by security agencies, it also shows that Nigeria handed guns to mentally unstable people. The police stopped short of accusing the army of engaging in kidnapping in the area, yet it is most probable.
Few questions beg for answers: Why are officers of the IGP Response Team dressing like cultists during operations? Is it possible that the army would have engaged them if they were adequately dressed?
Due to the modus operandi of IRT in moving around in unmarked vehicles, how would they be easily identified by other sister services?
I will also join the police in asking salient questions to the Army: questions like:
· Where is the notorious kidnapper, Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume ‘rescued’ by the soldiers?
· How and why did the soldiers release alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume?
· How could a kidnap suspect properly restrain with handcuffs by the Police escape from the hands of his military rescuers?
· If Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume is a ‘‘victim of kidnap’’ as claimed, and rescued adequately by soldiers, why was he not taken to the Army Base for documentation purposes and debriefing in line with the Standard Operating Procedure in the Nigerian Army?
· Why were the Police Operatives shot at close range even after they had identified themselves as Police Officers on legitimate duty as evident in the video now in circulation?”
