Merchants Of Blood And Bullets, by Kene Obiezu

There is a reason Nigeria is still fighting ragtag enemies it should have vanquished many years ago : saboteurs within its ranks. Vicious vipers. Enemies by any other name. Betrayers. Cowardly sell-outs. There is really no fitting description for their vile enterprise. Even the strongest words can only come close.

At a recent destruction of about 2400 seized/recovered illicit small arms in Abuja, Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, let loose a chilling revelation: that some unscrupulous personnel in some security agencies were selling arms to the criminals tormenting Nigeria.

Since 2009, as Nigeria has fought tooth and nail to cling on to every inch of its territory, the country has been haunted by the terrifying spectre of poor morale among troops fighting the fiends fracturing Nigeria. This poor morale coupled with a general lack of preparedness by the country to anticipate and confront insecurity has left its flanks exposed to insecurity.

Entire communities have been displaced, many lives lost and livelihoods obliterated at the hands of insecurity. In deed, the fact that Nigerians have had to add insecurity to their grinding poverty has made for one of the most painful experiences of nationhood anywhere on earth.

Even before bandits joined Boko Haram terrorists in the insecurity queue, a question that has slackened the lips of many Nigerians is: who is sponsoring terrorists in Nigeria?

The Nigerian government has been unable to comprehensively answer this question despite the abundance of resources available to.

In the absence of any kind of cogent answer from the state which has a responsibility to answer such questions, and with mounting evidence, Nigerians have been able to draw inevitable conclusions that some of their countrymen have been the sponsors of some of the worst atrocities committed against innocent people anywhere on earth.
These sponsors of insecurity have never been known, at least not to the public. It has also appeared that Nigerian authorities have been reluctant to discover and expose them.

Apparently, some of those supposedly fighting terrorism in the country are aiding it instead. When arms that are supposed to go into the fight against insecurity are trafficked and used to aid terrorists by the people who are supposed to be fighting them, it means the war will never end.

This disclosure prompts many questions that are all of vital importance in the quest to rid Nigeria of niggling insecurity. Do Nigerian security agencies know its personnel who are in bed with terrorists? If they don’t, what are they doing to find out?

What are they doing about their personnel who have been discovered as trading arms to criminals? How are they getting them to provide useful intelligence on the ongoing fight against terrorism?

This last question is important because a security personnel who sells arms to terrorists may as well be aiding them in other ways. For all Nigerians know, compromised security personnel may in addition to trading arms leak sensitive information to those fighting the country.

In the last decade, insecurity has been the thorniest of Nigeria’s problems. That is no mean feat in a country which has battled colossal corruption and grinding poverty for decades now.

Many gallant defenders of the country have lost their lives in the line of duty. With the NSA’s revelation, many of them died by weapons that should have been trained on terrorists instead.

There have been ambushes resulting in deadly attacks on Nigerian troops in circumstances that make it clear that information was leaked. So much of the pain Nigeria has experienced from insecurity has come from the actions of saboteurs within its ranks.

That is why there is a need for an extensive and unsparing investigation into the loyalties of those who make up the ranks of Nigeria’s security agencies. All those found to have their loyalties elsewhere must be rooted out and forcefully punished.

Nigeria cannot continue to shoot itself in the foot by sending into battle those who would gleefully see it defeated.

It is bad enough that corruption has corroded every aspect of life in Nigeria. Allowing it to compromise the fight against insecurity and send many to their early grave is unacceptable.

Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com