Rant on the security situation back home

The security situation back home continues to give one cause for concern. I was reading the Guardian Newspaper today and this story simply struck me as incredulous! http://odili.net/news/source/2008/aug/19/29.html It is a story about how dare-devil armed robbers found a way into the government house of the Delta State government, carting away goods worth up to 2.6 million naira in the process.

If the government house of a state governor could be burgled in this fashion and subjected to ridicule, what hope is there for the man on the street? The man who has no security officers guarding him/her?

This security situation calls for urgent redress by the Nigerian government. Something serious needs to be done to arrest a situation that has gone so out-of-hand, that the miscreants now target governors and government officials. What the criminals are invariably saying is, ' f$@k you Nigeria, there is nothing you can do to stop us, we are stronger than you now, we are above the law!'

Of course, the little man on the street should not hold his/her breath! Successive Nigerian governments have failed to take the security situation serious and this has led to the deterioration in law and order.

The Police Force is basically useless and cannot even take care of its own house. Rather than try their best to find a way out of this quagmire that we have placed ourselves, they instead, spend their time fighting stupid battles that further subject our already ridiculous image to more ridicule! They would rather spend their time demoting Nuhu Ribadu, or arresting prostitutes, than spend their time fighting crime. The only work they have to do is collect twenty naira notes from bus and okada drivers and they will kill and have killed to protect this lucrative source of livelihood. If they are not busy at that, then they are busy setting up road blocks to spread further headache for the common man.

The way the situation is now, no one even knows who to run to anymore. You could meet men dressed in uniform on the highway and they turn out to be armed robbers. Even if you meet the real policemen, they would not hesitate to rob you if they can get away with it. The way the nation is now, it is every man for himself.

The nincompoops we have running the National Assembly are another matter. Instead of fashioning bills that will help in arresting the deteriorating security situation, they spend their time fashioning bills against 'immoral dressing by women!'. How stupid! They even went to the United Nations to talk about that! If the situation on the ground was not so serious, I would be rolling on the ground with laughter and probably die of it too!

Nigerians are weighed down already by too much - poverty, corrupt officials, dead-end education systems, etc - and to compound things further, they have to be saddled with a security situation that has been left unattended by the government. Of course, there is crime everywhere, but if the State pretends as if it is not there, then it will get out of control. This security situation is affecting Nigeria in so many ways - lack of inward foreign investment, brain drain, to name but a few.

The fact remains, something urgent needs to be done by the National government as soon as possible or this will result in anarchy. The Nigerian State and the symbols that represent her should be held sacrosanct by every citizen of the country – if governors and government officials are being attacked this fashion by armed robbers, then they are sending a message to the State. That message needs to be addressed in the right fashion but these miscreants are being left alone to grow in strength, to amass dangerous weapons and if care is not taken, Nigeria being the kind of state it is, will be taken over by them. It is still not too late to tackle these guys, the government can still act now and bring order into a situation which is fast spiralling out of control