A Country That Hunts It’s Defenders -By Ike Wille-Nwobu

For all its allure as an ancient city celebrated for its commerce and culture, Kano State has often proven it retains one of Nigeria’s darkest underbelly, with undercurrents that have never really been reluctant to flash their fangs. In 2024, as protests glided across the country reducing the promises of renewed hope by president Bola Tinubu to ruins, Kano State provided some of the fiercest flashpoints. The protesters, many of them out-of-school children, street urchins and vagrants, fell upon public property in the state. It was just one instance.

In May, an irate mob descended on the Rano Police Division in Kano State over the death of a suspect. They set parts of the station ablaze, vandalized police vehicles and inflicted grievous bodily harm on the CSP Baba Ali, the police chief in charge of the division.

Arrests have since been made and prosecution begun, but a country currently experiencing the storm of insecurity must ask itself the hardest questions.

Nigeria must become that country where it is a sacrilege to kill security personnel. Nigeria must become that country where the citizens know that they are the first line of defence for security personnel and take their responsibility most seriously. That is the country that Nigeria must become.
That Nigeria has steadily become a laboratory for insecurity is down to the fact that some of her citizens have become cold-blooded criminals who are not squeamish in the least about taking human life or shedding innocent blood be it that of their fellow citizens or even that of those who defend them.

For all that is wrong with the Nigerian system;for all the failings of the criminal justice system; for all the victims of the many heinous crimes that have slipped through the yawning cracks of Nigeria’s criminal justice system; for all the that Nigeria continues to fail Nigerians, the life of every security personnel remains invaluable and inviolable.
For all a few security personnel paint the system black and taint their uniforms; for all they abuse their power and the trust Nigerians repose in them, for all they engage in corrupt acts which make the system even worse, it must be inconceivable that they should be harmed in any way, especially in the agonizing way CSP Baba Ali was killed.

For all that Nigeria has become, Nigerians must look themselves in the mirror and hard too. What manner of moral bankruptcy and vacuity will make a human being, any human being at all, to kill their fellow human being in cold blood? How bad must the lack of humanity be if people can kill anyone in cold blood and live with it with neither compunction nor consequences?

For some Nigerians, especially the howling hordes on social media, the death of security personnel is usually a cause for celebration. They often justify their callous comments by pointing out the excesses and highhandedness of the security personnel. But there is never justification to be found in such deaths.

It is incurable insanity for a man to celebrate the crumbling of his walls. For all their faults and flaws, what is clear is that without security personnel, Nigerians will be overrun by criminals, many of whom hug shadows waiting for opportune moments to strike.

CSP Baba Ali’s family deserves justice. The Nigerian police deserve justice for his brutal killing. For being robbed of such a fine defender, Nigerians deserve justice.

Policemen across the country especially should be able to go about their duties safe in the knowledge that they are not in danger from those who they are supposed to protect.

As for those who promote mob justice with glee, someday, Nigeria will become that country where the mob is no majority but a painfully shrunk minority that is wholly subservient to the rule of law.

Ike Wille-Nwobu,.
Ikewilly9@gmail.com