Insecurity: Dakuku Startled Over Death Stats, Cautions Against Unguarded Statements
Renown Social commentator and former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Adolphus Peterside has flinched at the casualty figures recorded in the past one year as banditry and terrorism continues to ravage parts of the country.
In his weekly commentary on the sad spectacle of insecurity especially in the Northern part of the country, Dakuku lamented that a total of 8,279 deaths linked to insecurity in Nigeria in the past one year has been recorded, regretting that the statistics paint a gory picture of an unsafe country.
The former NIMASA boss who also casted doubt on the actuality of this figure, added that the figures are only “official records in a country where record keeping has always been an anathema”.
He blamed the governors for playing politics with the rising wave of insecurity, given their discordant voices, citing the recent altercations between some Northern governors over their various states’ security challenges, warning that such posture would only make a bad situation get worse.
Dakuku recalled that Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, had gone on air to accuse the federal government of shielding Fulani herdsmen who are killing farmers in some parts of the country, inferring that such tacit support was the reason for the worsening insecurity in the country.
He also talked about Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai who told Nigerians that governors were called Chief Security Officer only by name, regretting that there was no synergy among Northern States’ governors in the fight against insecurity.
According to him, even their counterpart from Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje disagreed with El-Rufai on the ‘lack of synergy amongst the governors and accused him of being ill informed about the situation’.
He said, “This merry-go-round blame game and altercation by our governors are unnecessary at this point when insecurity has become perhaps the most significant impediment to our peaceful coexistence and development.
It is very insouciant to play politics with our insecurity challenges. What Nigerians need at this point is a lasting solution to the security challenges that we face”.
On the strength of claims by some governors that they were only CSOs on paper, Dakuku advised them to “use the substantial resources set aside for security, to find creative means of tackling their peculiar security challenges within our current security architecture”.
Dakuku, a former governorship candidate in Rivers State also advocated for true federalism and unity of purpose to address the monster of insecurity in the country.
“Is it not yet time for Nigeria to practice true federalism where states are in control and only get help from the center when they cannot solve their problems locally?
The issue of state police comes to the fore. How can a governor be the States’ Chief Security Officer without control of the police in the state”, he queried.
