Emergency rule to please all

CALLS for emergency rule in some parts of the country are at least three years old. Plateau State was often mentioned, but memories of the emergency rule in the State in 2002, and fears that emergency rule could favour a party in the conflict stalled any move.

Abia, Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Taraba are States that have been in serious security situations that raised enough concerns that emergency rule was considered.

Senate President, David Achelenu Mark, was incensed enough in July 2010 to have said, “We should declare a state of emergency in all these areas where we have armed robbery and kidnapping. If we can declare a state of emergency on energy, we should do it for kidnapping and then armed robbery,” he told his colleagues as debates raged on the state of insecurity around Nigeria. The issue was kidnapping in Abia State.

“Presently, it is simply a jungle environment and rule must change to conform to those who operate in jungle environment and I believe that the security agencies should be able to do that. Personally, in the situation of jungle environment, where we want to apply rule of law, it could be very difficult indeed at times. Those who are involved must be handled in such a way that they will never contemplate it in life again.”

File Photo: JTF officers

His words captured the angst about kidnapping and armed robbery. When it came to the hundreds of lives that have been lost in the country daily since 2010, actions that have been tainted by all manners of considerations: none has stopped the killers; rather the killers have been emboldened to the extent that they make demands, and set conditions for stopping their criminality.

President Goodluck Jonathan in restricting the emergency to only Adamawa Borno, and Yobe again played politics with an important matter.

Belated state of emergency

In leaving the governors to rule the States, the first time a state of emergency is going on under such terms, he set out to please everyone. When Plateau and Ekiti States were under emergency rule, they had sole administrators.

What about the crisis in Nasarawa, where an unknown number of security agents have been killed? Nasarawa is spared? What about Bauchi, Taraba, Kaduna, Gombe, Kano and Plateau? What informed their exclusion? The state of emergency is not only belated, but so compromised that it may not be effective. Its selected application is similar to a decision in 2011 to impose emergency measures in some local government areas of some of the crisis-ridden States. It did not work.

President Jonathan has set out to be seen as doing something about the security situation. In waiting for so long to act, we may have missed critical moments that would have sent his message directly to the terrorists. In setting out to please all sides of the political divide, he might have largely succeeded in whittling the impact of emergency rule.

What is next? How would these measures that appear borne out of advice from interested parties (personal interests) affect the fight against terrorism? How would the security agencies whose colleagues were killed in Nasarawa feel about the slight mention the incident got?

The long journey to tackling terrorism has taken a turn that would leave many wondering if it has begun or stopped under the guise that it is revving up.

We have established a culture of impunity and now partiality, the latest measure emphasises it. Terrorists are exploiting it – the results are the endless killings in Adamawa, Plateau, Kano, Kaduna, Gombe, Bauchi, Borno, and Yobe. Nasarawa has joined.