By Augustine Ehikioya
For past dark days of insecurity not to return to Nigeria, a Social Commentator, Chimezie Anyadike, has called on the incoming administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to tow the steps of the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari on security.
According to him, President Muhammadu Buhari administration has done excellently well on security in the country, which has far improved than what it was in 2015.
He was analysing how achievements in security in the past eight years can be sustained while speaking during Security Watch Africa (SWA) programme on African Independent Television (AIT) on Saturday.
Stressing that the capacity to tackle insecurity has been developed under the Muhammadu Buhari administration, he urged the incoming government to take it further by helping to develop the capacity to prevent crimes from happening.
He said “I think his work is cut out for him. In fact, I should say that a great percentage of the job has been done for him by the Muhammadu Buhari administration, in the sense that the morale of the Military infrastructure of Nigeria has never been as high as its been currently.
“The morale of the men is so high. When you watch some of their activities on social media how they recapture towns, rescue hostages, you hear them singing, jumping up and down, rejoicing, something that never happened before.
“So, I think what the incoming administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu should do is just to take the playbook of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, sit some of them down as consultants, take the playbook and then improve on it.
“I love what the incoming Vice President said that the incoming President will be in charge of the economy and that he was seated in the theatre of war throughout his eight years administration as the Governor of Borno State, that he understands insecurity and how to tackle it and he will be able to do what is necessary to continue the legacy of the Muhammadu Buhari administration to improve on the current infrastructure of the military hardware and personnel.”
He added “And also strategies and not just tackling insecurity but preventing it. We have developed the capacity to tackle, we need to develop the capacity to at least prevent it, to forestall it, to nip it in the bud before it happens.”
Asked what the incoming government should do to get the people and communities more involved in security, he said “What is to be done is to build on the confidence of the citizens in the security infrastructure or the security personnel.
“I think the confidence level is quite high but it needs to be improved on much more. I’ve been privy to some of the activities of the corporate social responsibility of the Army in various locations in Nigeria. The only challenge is that there is no publicity of these things.
“So people don’t actually know these things and they need to know and the perspective of the people will change. So when it gets to communal policing, you don’t need to get anybody to think twice before they report on any issue they must have witnessed. People want to do that, but they are like who will protect me,” he stated.
The incoming government, he said, should do more to sensitize and enlighten the public as a way of building confidence.
He also urged Nigerians to support the incoming government with regards to security.
Speaking on the achievements of the Muhammadu Buhari government in past eight years, he said “I think it’s very visible to the blind and quite loud to the deaf that the improvement is very very massive. Pre-2015, before the inauguration of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, we all knew what it was like in the FCT to start with, all the suicide bombings, the attacks on the United Nations secretariat, the attacks on the Police Headquarters, the attacks on Banex Plaza.
“All over the FCT, practically everybody lived in terror. Churches had security infrastructure, scanners. For every member coming in, cars were scanned.
In the North East, the Boko Haram insurgents were in control of about 21 local governments. That was pre-2015.
“When President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in, he made security one of his top priority. He relocated the Service Chiefs then, the Command Centre, to the North East and we have seen the outcome.
“We hardly hear of suicide bombings in the past two to three years, if I’m not mistaken. There have been no bombing attack on the FCT in over six to seven years.
There have been inroads sustained by the Military hierarchy against the insurgents in the North East.
“When we talk about banditry and all of that, we’ve also seen the inroads and visible progress the Military has sustained against the enemies of the State.
“So, I think it’s very audible to the deaf and visible to the blind that we are not where we used to be. Nobody lives in fear anymore, everybody goes about their business like nothing ever happened.
“We have to give credit to whom credit is due. This administration has done excellently and marvelously well in the area of security and improving the hardware and personnel of the Nigerian Army. I think they should receive kudos for that,” he stated.
