Special to USAfricaonline.com and USAfrica magazine Houston.
Nigeria’s Taraba State Governor, Darius Ishaku, has warned that Nigeria is sliding into anarchy. Pointedly, he said: “Nigeria is sliding to a failed state, yes of cause Nigeria is sliding into anarchy. Even the blind can see that we are sliding into anarchy and the deaf can hear about that too.”Although he maintained that Nigeria should learn from the United States by not bringing the military into the civilian societies/communities for problems that a properly equipped police force could handle, he recognized the fact that the Nigerian military is already involved. Regardless, he stated “It is a disgrace if a country’s military cannot flush out insurgents within its territory. We need a state police; we need the constitution to be amended.”
Ishaku pointed out that this issues require local intelligence and look at a knowledge of the environment especially by those who are governing at the state and local levels. “I am called Executive Governor, Executive for what? If I cannot implement the decisions I take with the troops under my command? So, the state police is imperative and must come to stay. Without the state police, we are surcharging democracy, it won’t work. The sooner the state police is enacted, the better.”
On the question of establishing a regional security organization for the North East region — similar to what the governors have done in the South West and South-Eastern regions of Nigeria, he said
”On regional security outfit, the northeast is not contemplating it, I particularly do not support it, but I have since assumption of office been supporting the creation of state police.
”I have been the first person who said the constitution has been surcharged that is to say that, where we copied the constitution from the United States of America, it is written there that there is local police, state, and federal police and they complement each other…. The issue is, we need state police, the constitution to be amended and I am not in support of regional security outfit, though it can work in other regions, for us here we have grown past that in the northeast, we are battling the insurgency.” USAfricaonline.com notes Ishaku’s use of term “the insurgency” is part of the reference to the escalating violence and actual occupation of some communities in mostly the northeast of Nigeria by the radical jihadist groups including Boko Haram, ISWA, etc.
He argued that the apparent inability of the federal government to handle issues of insurgency and insecurity are major factors in the economic decline of Nigeria. Ishaku spoke at an interactive session with journalists at his State’s capital city of Jalingo, marking his sixth year in office as the Executive Governor of the state. ———
USAfrica: Buhari and Nigeria’s burden of Insecurity. By Chido Nwangwu
