FRANK ODITA, retired Commissioner of Police, tells Senior Correspondent, ISHAYA IBRAHIM, the strategy needed to rescue the abducted Chibok girls…
Security lapses responsible for bomb attacks in Nigeria, especially Abuja
Frank Odita
The situation we find ourselves is not the issue of security lapses; it is the issue of insensitivity by the citizens too. Yes; because the person who plants a bomb is not in uniform, he drives a car normally. Like what happened in Abuja, it is a shopping mall. Every shopping mall has security. And in a shopping mall, everybody drives in to buy and go away. You don’t expect policemen or soldiers to be guarding a shopping mall which is a private business concern. The only thing that is lacking, that we should be able to advise, is that every office or shopping mall or organisation should have equipment at its gate that tracks Improvised Explosives Devices (IEDs). Hotels in Abuja have barricades at their gates. When you are coming with a car, they search the car; they also screen the vehicle with metal detectors. That helps. But if it is not there, then it doesn’t make sense. And if the security men at the gate are not doing their work well, and they are not vigilant, then members of the public also should become more vigilant. The situation we have found ourselves in is that we members of the public should become more sensitive and vigilant, to be able to attend to security challenges around us.
Holding somebody responsible for failing in his job, given that there are checkpoints and security infrastructure at such areas
The security infrastructure you are talking about are not trackers. A situation where we do not have steady electricity supply, it is not easy for even CCTV (closed circuit television) to pick up anybody. If you have a CCTV that is not powered by electricity, it is as good as non-existent. So, the issue now is that every citizen owes it a responsibility to be security-conscious. If he sees anything that is unusual, movements, for instance, he reports it. And if somebody has gone to purchase explosive materials, report should be made to the authorities. Some people can purchase these items on the guise that they want to use it for blasting of rocks or say they are construction agents. So, police is expected to check on those who have officially been allowed to bring in or purchase these materials for their official work and put a tag on them, so that it is not abused. If they can take good custody of these items and they don’t give them to wrong hands, then we don’t have a problem. But (there is problem) if we abuse it because nobody cares or because of corruption – somebody gives you money and seals your mouth, you could be the one who will die. This is not the time to compromise on anything that will endanger lives.
Rescuing Chibbok girls more than two months after
I want to believe that it is better late than never. I am sure that security agencies are doing their best. They are also concerned citizens. So I will want to believe that efforts are being made to find out where the girls are. To be able to get the girls out, there is going to be an assault. It will take something like little war to rescue the girls. And they could be keeping the girls close to them, so that if you attack them, you may have to attack the girls too. And we don’t want to lose the girls. It has to be very tactful. It demands a lot of security indices, which means that intelligence must be gathered. If the right people are given the job to do, and properly motivated, and they are not the kind of people that can compromise or shy away from their responsibilities, they will give out the good information.
Waiting for the right intelligence
There is no end to it. The only thing we pray is that the girls don’t get killed. So long as they are alive, some of them may be abused. They may no longer be girls; they may eventually be prospective mothers. But it doesn’t matter how long it takes to find them. What is more important is for the girls to be found and returned to their parents. In whatever state they are, they are still their children. They will prefer that they come back alive. Even if they are pregnant, they will still deliver the children, go back to school and be what they want them to be.
Rescue taking time even with America and other countries’ involvement
It is a diplomatic thing. You don’t just get into a country and get involved in their security issues. They have to give you the yardstick to follow, so that you don’t create problems. You don’t expect United States (U.S.) marines to come from the moon and land in Sambisa forest and begin to discover the girls. They have to do their homework; they also will not want to lose any of their personnel. Even if they want to go there, they will only go there in support of Nigerian personnel; they won’t go there on their own. So, all hopes are not lost. Diplomatic moves are still on. Efforts are being made. Synergy is the answer. People are coming together to see how best they can get these girls out.
Neglecting security challenges posed by Sambisa forest
It is not that we did not know that it exists. But what we did not imagine is that it would be occupied by insurgents and used as a launching pad to attack Nigeria. The reason also is because we do not preempt certain things that could happen. We take a lot of things for granted. And when they started seeing these people coming, they also didn’t make any report about them. Probably they didn’t take them seriously until we found ourselves in the situation we are.
About 160 million Nigerians having about 120,000 military personnel
The number is not the issue. The issue is, how equipped and battle-ready are they? Battle-ready in the sense that how equipped, how motivated and how prepared they are in terms of training and logistics. That is the issue that is important. It is not about the number.
Deploying the military to election and civil matters
The answer is to go back to the drawing board; get the police colleges properly equipped and properly staffed for manpower development and send the officers for training and take care of their welfare. A willing soldier or police officer will do well. But somebody who is ill-motivated, ill-equipped cannot do anything tangible. So, our government should bring security at the front burner and fund it adequately because security is not cheap. Security is expensive; and if we need security, we must pay for it.
