The gruesome murder of four officers and 13 other soldiers of the Nigerian Army at Okuama community in Delta state last week, allegedly carried out by yet to be identified persons, has once again raised the question on the nation’s fault lines bordering on leadership since 1999. For now, it’s the military up against the Okuama people, pending when investigation as to what led to the death of the 17 military personnel would be made public. We decry the killing of Nigerian soldiers drafted to keep the peace between the two warring communities of Okuama and Okoloba, no matter the provocation, and therefore, call for restraint on both parties to avoid further loss of lives.
That Nigeria, for many years is enmeshed in all manner of challenges, especially security is not a good report card at all. The country has lost count of those killed in like manner, simply because little or no value is placed on human life in our society, unfortunately. The number of such victims continues to increase unabated. As it stands, it appears no solution is in sight just as the unidentified enemies of the state have become very daring and emboldened, owing to what observers describe as leadership failure with corruption raised to worrisome proportion.
This development, unfortunately, has presented the state as a failing one with harvest of innocent deaths recorded on daily basis. The citizens can no longer be protected by the leaders, nor their safety guaranteed in 25 years of our democracy. No day passes without gory tales being told about our dear country. For example, before the killing of the soldiers in Delta State, within one week, three kidnap cases occurred in Kaduna State alone; and when the dust had hardly settled, hundreds of innocent young boys and girls, including children were taken away by terrorists from Kaduna, supposedly the most fortified city in the country, given the presence of all kinds of military hardware and personnel in that state.
Already, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed that those fingered in the heinous act should be arrested and made to face the full weight of the law. While we applaud this pronouncement by the president, such orders should also be extended to kidnappers who are demanding and collecting ransom to free their captives, for those who are lucky to regain freedom. Some say the lingering state of insecurity has some political undertone. We want these criminals who have sworn that Nigeria would know no peace to be unmasked and shamed.
Those calling for dialogue with terrorists who are bent on disturbing the peace of the nation and her people, especially the non-state actors, must be viewed with suspicion and accordingly dealt with if we must get away from the present predicament. We want to see an end to insecurity and brigandage in the country. The death of innocent people in the country is one, too many. To look the other way, or ignore the problem, amounts to aiding and abetting criminality, no matter the party leanings and the religion one professes.
Suddenly, Nigerians have become used to the recurring issue of farmers and herders’ clashes and forgotten that unless the proliferation of small arms and light weapons is checkmated, the senseless killings of innocent Nigerians would continue unabated. On account of this, Kaduna, Borno, Plateau, Katsina and many other states have suffered dearly in the hands of these marauders, and still counting. Again, with the upsurge of huge number of Nigerian youths that have taken to trafficking and sniffing of hard drugs, including the activities of Yahoo Yahoo boys who want to become rich overnight, the leadership of the country has a lot to chew in reshaping the society and mindset of the people. We condemn in all entirety the killing of our security personnel anywhere, not only the recent one that happened in Delta state.
We also call on the Nigerian military as an institution not to take laws into their own hands and indeed, stick to the rules of engagement in maintaining law and order, and not succumb to emotion, especially at this time of grief. Again, we call on the military top brass to review its institutions’ operational manual, given that the military personnel of any nation are not just wasted anyhow by those they are supposed to protect.
The presence of the military almost in every corner of the country should be looked into by those concerned to forestall a repeat of this preventable and unfortunate situation. We call on the government and the military institutions not to abandon the families of the fallen soldiers. Those they left behind must be taken care of by the government.
