Memorandum submitted to the Presidential Committee on National Security in Nigeria

This memorandum presents the views and positions of the Citizens Forum for Constitutional Reform (CFCR) on the question of national (in) security in Nigeria. It also offers policy recommendations on how the key issues threatening the peace, stability and security of the country can be tackled.

The memorandum is in six parts. Part one conceptualises what national security is. Part two focuses on the question of insecurity in Nigeria tracing its background, contemporary manifestations and deep-rooted causes. Part three is on the consequences or impact of conflicts on individuals, groups and communities and the nation in general. Part four is on the impact of conflicts on individuals, communities and the nation at large. Part five analyses the role and effectiveness of state institutions charged with the responsibility of conflict prevention and management. The last part of the memorandum is on recommendations.

This memorandum has been carefully done given the scope of work and terms of reference of the Presidential Panel on National Security.

National security in a broad sense implies the absence of threat to life, property, and socio-economic well being of the people. A proper understanding of security is important for an adequate explanation of “ the remote causes of breach of peace and security, whether historical, religious, civil, ethnic, economic, social, political, etc, that have contributed to the recurring conflicts, which the nation has witnessed over the years resulting in wanton destruction and loss of lives and property”. Security has implication for individuals, communities, and the nation, and must be analysed at these various levels. Certain factors tend to increase the vulnerability of people to insecurity. These include gender, class, age, status, ethnicity, religion, ecology, region, etc.

The state exists primarily for the protection of lives and property and ensuring the well being of the people. As such state – based institutions have responsibility for the security of the citizens. However, certain institutions are specifically charged with the responsibility for the protection of life and property. These institutions are the police, state security agencies, the military, immigration, and prison services.

Nigeria in recent times has witnessed an unprecedented level of insecurity. Inter-communal and inter-ethnic clashes, religious violence, armed robbery, assassination, murder, gender-based violence, and bomb explosion have been on the increase leading to enormous loss of life and property and a general atmosphere of siege and social tension for the people. In the over two years since President Olusegun Obasanjo came to office (in May 1999) it has been estimated that no less than ten thousand lives have been lost to violence of different natures and character. While communities and groups fight each other, state agents have also been involved in the perpetration of violence and destruction as reflected in the Odi and Benue crises.

The following are the various manifestations of conflict and insecurity in Nigeria in the present conjuncture:

Communal and societal conflicts have emerged as a result of new and particularistic forms of political consciousness and identity often structured around ethnicity and religion. In all parts of Nigeria ethno-religious conflicts have assumed alarming proportions. It has occurred in places like Sagamu in Ogun state, Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Nassarawa, Taraba, and many of the oil producing communities. Groups and communities who had over the years lived together in peace and harmony now take up arms against each other in gruesome “war”. The claim over scarce resources - power, land, chieftaincy, local government areas, control of markets and other trivial things have resulted in large scale killings and violence amongst groups in Nigeria. In those conflicts, a new logic of social separation and dichotomy has evolved in many communities in Nigeria. This is the classification of the “settler” and the “indigene” or “Christian” and “Muslim” dichotomy. Ethnicity and religion have become disintegrative and destructive social elements threatening the peace, stability and security of the country.

The religious crisis has centered essentially on the introduction of the Sharia penal system in some northern states in Nigeria. The statisation of religious laws has raised critical issues about rights of minority religious groups and individuals in those places, the provisions of the constitution on religion as regards the secularity of the Nigerian state, and the question of citizenship and rights in the federation. The zealousness by which politicians have pursued this ‘religious cause’ in those states poses serious questions on how it should be explained. One explanation is that the Sharia issue is simply a political project deployed by those who are losing political power, especially at the center to create crisis in the society and thereby have a bargaining chip with those who are currently holding political power in order to gain leverage in the political process.

Another strand argues that the Shari’a issue can be seen as a response by so called Islamic fundamentalism to a growing Christian fundamentalism under a “born-again” Christian president. The advent and proliferation of Pentecostal Christianity as a powerful social and political force in Nigeria represents a growing concern amongst doctrinaire Moslems and orthodox Christians alike. In addition, there is a sense in which it is believed that Christians have now appropriated the current government as their own God’s government. The problem is that this Pentecostal strain is intolerant and fundamentalist, and viscerally opposed to Islam, unlike the erstwhile mainstream churches (Catholic and Protestant) which are more liberal and embracing.

This has created genuine tension in the Moslem community in Nigeria. Many Christians have become more confident and outspoken, and it would appear that there is a level of discomfort in the Moslem community about this. It would appear that Christians have concluded that religion has played a key part in ensuring the tenacity and staying power of Moslems in government over these years, hence the signs and symbols of government have taken on a strong, Christian streak. The President talks loosely about being on God’s mission to change Nigeria; Ministers openly accuse opponents as “anti-Christ and anti-religious” who want to destroy God’s anointed government and marabouts that were predominant in the presidential palace under General Abacha have now been replaced by pentecostal evangelists claiming that this is ‘their turn’ to direct the nation’s affairs. Even a chapel has been built and consecrated with fanfare in the seat of presidential power to the chagrin of those who believe this to be an imposition of the Christian faith and it is often rumoured that the person who has the last word on presidential speeches is the Chaplain who presides over the regular breakfast prayers in Aso Rock – the presidential villa.

The above represents an extreme form of religiosity, which has overtaken a population that has grown more dependent on faith based arrangements in the wake of government’s inability to provide the basic needs of the people and this is threatening the state to its very foundations. Indeed, one will be underestimating the pro-Sharia and pentecostal forces, especially the way they have seized popular imagination and clearly influenced public opinion in the domain of operation, using strategies to sway the ordinary people in communities where there is an acute crisis of governance and failure of political leadership.[1] Ethnicity and religion have become an enclave of political identity, economic advancement and social solidarity given the failure of the state with regard to its welfare functions of providing basic necessities of life, and evolving a social integrative mechanism that promotes “ unity through diversity”.

While ethnicity and religion continue to hold sway in society and the state, it is evident from the Nigerian conflict situation that it is often an ideological cover for a crisis that is altogether more complex or more the effect than the cause of the current pattern of cleavages. At the same time, recognising the place of identity and difference in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society need not elicit the demonisation that often attends the discourse about ethnicity and religion, which results to a large extent as a pretext to limit or avoid political liberalisation and power sharing.

Politicians in the current civil dispensation have displayed less than a consociational spirit in which dialogue, negotiation and consensus will be the hallmark of politics. There is a sense in which current conflicts can be seen as a reaction to perceived or real loss of power by an elite stratum. What is happening is therefore a contest over raw political power: who lost power, who won power, and who wants power back. The processes that threw up General Obasanjo as the candidate of this elite stratum were intimately bound up with the political crisis that has gripped the Nigerian political class.

Currently, politicians are already strategizing about the control and retention of power in the 2003 elections. To this end, inter and intra-party conflicts have become rife in which politicians are deploying enormous resources to out-do each other, changing the rules of the game, distorting laws[2], and employing violence and political assassination to settle scores. Party meetings and conventions have become theatres of heinous conflicts where light weapons like guns and pistols are freely displayed. Also, a spate of assassination is rife. The most shocking of this was the murder of Chief Bola Ige, the Minister for Justice and Attorney General of the federation. It is paradoxical and of course tragic that the Chief law officer of the country could be a victim of lawlessness. Up till today the police and the intelligence agencies have not made any break through in unraveling the death of Bola Ige. Ige’s death exposes the vulnerability of all Nigerians to attack and assassination, which has imposed a state of fear and anxiety on the Nigerian populace.

There are also newspaper reports that suggest politicians are already training political thugs that will rig elections, intimidate and harass the electorates and safeguard their procurement of a second term in office. The predilection of most of the politicians is not for election but selection. This is already being revealed in the party primaries and “selection” of national executive officers of the parties. Even politicians themselves are afraid of what the forthcoming general elections in 2003 portend. An atmosphere of political insecurity is fast engulfing Nigeria’s nascent civil rule.

Two related issues serve as basis for economic based violence. These are natural resources and poverty. Recent writings in the Nigerian media and across the political spectrum have laid heavy emphasis on the role of resources in generating violent conflict. Cries of resource control regularly rent the air between its proponents and opponents. This emphasis has also found its way into recent scholarship in the new school of ‘political economy of violence’.

Although by no means limited to oil in the Niger-Delta, the most prevalent campaign about the link between resources and conflict focuses on oil and the Delta region. Indeed, the debate about resource control in the Delta has exemplified the controversy over resource exploitation, appropriation and management in Nigeria. There is of course no doubt that violent conflict has assumed a more virulent edge in the Niger-Delta over the last decade, but the present crisis in the Niger Delta should be understood as a long-drawn out historical process, itself propelled and animated by complex international economic and political forces - which the local inhabitants have been trying to comprehend, resist or turn to their own advantage these past one hundred years with varying degrees of success and failure. In other words, it is a story of power and resistance to it; of alien and imposed authority and attempts to indigenise it and make it accountable to the people it purports to rule.

There is evidence to suggest that oil has given rise to vertical conflicts between the state and society or between dominant and subordinate regions, classes and groups in Nigeria, given the pivotal role that oil plays in the restructuring of power relations in Nigeria. Set in the context of unaccountable and authoritarian power structures of the last three decades, in which communities and constituencies from where oil is taken, have found themselves at the receiving end of this unequal power relations in the 1990s, oil as a resource has played a role in fuelling or sustaining new forms of violent conflict between state and non-state formations.

It is however true that other types of resource` driven conflicts have received less attention in this debate. Assets such as grazing or farming and water resources, have tended to give rise to horizontal conflicts that involve communities (but not necessarily the state) that are largely rural in character, and are often intertwined with a variety of identity issues. The latest rash of conflicts in the Middle Belt of Nigeria and within communities in the Niger-Delta derives from this type of conflict. The lethality of these conflicts has been transformed in scope and intensity with the unrestricted availability of small arms and unemployed youths.

At the core of the crisis in the Niger Delta as indeed in other parts of the country is the failure of politics to allocate authority, legitimise it, and use it to achieve the social and economic ends that are conducive to communal well being. The ordinary people, expelled to the margins of politics and economics for so long are now knocking insistently on the gate, demanding to become full actors in the renewed context of democratisation and freedom.

Sadly, successive Nigerian governments have seen these communal crises, especially in the Niger Delta as purely a security matter, insisting that the country is dependent on the oil wells to power its economy, and that any action designed to endanger this ought to be treated as treason or economic sabotage. It was this reasoning that informed General Babangida's enactment of the Treason and Treasonable Offences Decree in June 1993. It was also responsible for the ordering of troops to Odi by the current administration. What is often ignored however is the fact that there are clear beneficiaries of the present state of violence and anarchy, and that these beneficiaries have absolutely no incentive to work with others on a programme that would return sustainable peace.

The other argument is that conflict in Nigeria is poverty induced. While the poor people in Nigeria rate insecurity as a key cause of poverty (Consultation with the Poor-2000), they do not necessarily see poverty as a cause of armed conflict. While we are not necessarily disputing the linkage between poverty and violent conflict, the nature of that relationship remains to be clarified. In the first place, if poverty exists and has apparently existed as a pervasive and structural feature of the Nigerian state, why has it not produced the sort of conflict that we have witnessed in recent years?

It would appear that the explanation for the above link might well lie in relative deprivation, rather than absolute poverty. If anything, the poor themselves are often prime victims of violent conflict and seek to desperately avoid conflict like a plague. In a country like Nigeria where stupendous and unexplained wealth lies astride abject poverty, the seeds of conflict are easily sown and germinate faster.

Set against the inability of the state to provide basic services for its citizens, new conflicts have manifested through politicised agents who have used the conditions of the poor to address the responses or non-responses of the state to the legitimate yearnings of the people. This comes into clear relief in the context of a democratic transition, in which, conflict becomes an integral, and often inevitable result of power shift since democratisation or at least democratic transition represent in the large part restoration of agency to some actors, but also loss of power by others accustomed to its unaccountable use. There can be no doubt that the transformation and utilisation of objective factors in the exacerbation of conflicts in Nigeria is not unconnected to this fact.

There has been the rise of organised violent groups that take varying dimension and forms. These include:

While different reasons, and circumstances led to the emergence of these groups, with them performing different roles, what is obvious is that they are all involved in the perpetuation of large – scale violence which creates a high level of insecurity in the society.

The above varying manifestations of conflicts are inter-related and they have deep-rooted causes such as:

There is the need to make a distinction between ‘structural’ and ‘conjunctural’ (short and medium term, largely subjective) factors in conflicts. The structural dimensions to conflict includes the failure of the state and its institutions, the structure of the Nigerian federation, economic structures and institutions that disempower people, rather than promote collective interests, and the culture of militarism. With regard to the latter, the state in Nigeria under military rule became a violent institution that unleashes violence on its citizens. The acculturation and response from the society has been one of counter-violence. This has engendered a cyclical culture of violence in Nigeria. The conjunctural dimension relates to the specific local responses and dynamics on the part of the communities and states to prevailing economic and political conditions foisted in the 1980s and 90s. To explain conflict, we also need a framework that (a) captures both the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ elements in the conflict nexus, and (b) explains why some communities are vulnerable to conflict while others prove fairly resilient.

Thus the patterns, texture and quality of politics that emerged with political liberalisation and transitions, which in Nigeria’s case reflected a reconfiguration and reassertion of pre-existing (though temporarily submerged) structures of national and local power bases are important for our understanding of conflicts in Nigeria especially in its conjunctural dimensions. It also involved, in other cases, the activation of alienated new strata, reflecting the dangerous ideological transformations wrought by the combined forces of authoritarianism, economic decline and social marginalisation.

Conflict creates enormous insecurity in the society with tremendous impact on individuals, social groups, communities and the nation in general. The impacts include:

· Social dislocations and displacement – Examples would include the recent Ikeja cantonment explosion in which about 20,000 people were displaced. In the recent Idi-Araba, Lagos inter-communal conflict, about 5,000 people were displaced. The Tiv/Junku and Tiv/Azara related crisis witnessed the displacement of about 95,000 persons from Nasarawa, Taraba, and Plateau states.

· Social tensions and new patterns of settlement – Muslims moving to Muslim dominated areas and Christians migrating to Christian dominated areas.

· Crisis over the question of citizenship. Hostility between ‘indigenes’ and ‘settlers’.

· Atmosphere of political insecurity and instability including declining confidence in the political leadership and apprehension about the system.

5. The Role and Effectiveness of Government Prevention and Management Institutions:

The magnitude and frequency of conflicts in the country underscores the failure of government institutions saddled with the responsibility of conflict prevention and management – the police force, security and intelligence agencies, and the military. There appears to be poor intelligence gathering, management and usage with regard to internal security in the country. Often, warning signals are ignored or poorly utilised. Conflict and crisis management institutions particularly the police force are ill equipped, poorly paid and trained, badly supervised, and grossly inefficient. In addition, the police force is extremely corrupt.

With regard to the military, its role in internal security is very questionable. In situations of conflict, the military has displayed poor judgement, applying excessive force to quell such conflicts. These have resulted in enormous casualties as the Odi experience clearly demonstrates. Also, the Ikeja cantonment explosion shows the inefficiency and poor management of the Nigerian armed forces. This incident resulted in colossal loss of lives and property and massive internal displacements.

Nigeria security agencies are neo-colonial in orientation, and as such are very repressive in their dealings with the citizens. They are not people-friendly. They perpetrate heinous violence against the people and the society as reflected in torture, extra-judicial killing, unlawful arrest and detention, dehumanisation, and extortion.

Government has not evolved and sustained economic policies and programmes capable of preventing crisis and conflicts in the society. Economic policies anchored on liberalisation and privatisation programmes have deepened poverty and misery in the country. These policies are taking the state out of the realm of social welfare such that individuals are left to fend for themselves and becoming desperate in the process. This has increased the wave of armed robbery, organised crime, and violence in the society. In deed, the rank of the militia group and street gang is drawn from the army of the unemployed. Government poverty alleviation programmes have proved largely ineffective, wasteful, and diversionary.

Based on the foregoing analysis, a number of measures seem to suggest themselves in developing a framework for conflict prevention/management and ensuring national security in Nigeria. These include the following:

There is need for political restructuring in order to ensure the practice of true federalism which will involve the devolution of power and resources from the centre to the sub-national units. This would serve as a means of attenuating social tensions arising from inter-group conflicts centred on the control of power and resources especially at the centre. Also, it would address the question of marginalisation as groups and communities will be incorporated in the power structure of the country. This constitutional reform should also address the question of citizenship in order to ameliorate the dangerous trend of settler-indigene dichotomy that is currently undermining social and political harmony in Nigeria.

There are two dimensions to the issue of the quality of governance in Nigeria. First, is the increasing irresponsibility of the political class and political leadership in Nigeria that is threatening our nascent democracy. Issues of electoral law, political competition, political tolerance, and consensus building are being undermined. This has created a high sense of political insecurity and instability in the country. There is the need to adopt a more people-centred approach to national political issues rather than the selfish tendencies of the politicians. The issues to be addressed should include the following:

a. The electoral law must be re-fashioned in order to allow for adequate political participation and uphold the principles of fairness and justice in Nigeria. Rigid rules for party formation should be removed, independent candidacy should be allowed, bottom-up approach to elections should be adopted (i.e. from the local government to the national level), and the law should not be contradictory to the letters and spirit of the constitution. It is when this is done that inclusive political participation can be engendered, and the current over heating of the political process diffused.

b. There is need to evolve a new culture of politics, which makes for tolerance and political accommodation amongst the political class. The survival of democracy in Nigeria is hinged on this.

The second dimension to the quality of governance is the nature of the policies that have been put in place. Government economic policies have not improved the welfare and quality of life of the people, rather it has worsened it. There is brazen corruption in the system and politicians are busy amassing public funds for private political ends. Without the dividends of democracy in terms of the basic welfare needs of the people – employment, housing, electricity, adequate food security, the democratic project will remain tenuous and fragile. Policy instruments must recognise the need to reconcile economic and social development and enhance the input of non-state actors – in policy formulation in order to enhance social capital.

The security sector, which comprises the military, the police, the intelligence agencies, and the prisons, require some restructuring or reform. The following are some of the recommendations for reform:

a. There is need for a National Defence and Security Policy which should be drawn up in a very inclusive manner that incorporates the different actors and stakeholders in the defence and security sector. This should include security sector personnel (serving and retired), civil society groups involved in defence and security issues, policy makers, and academics. This policy will specify the nation’s security needs, objectives, and strategies in the immediate, medium and long term.

b. Commitment to professionalism: Issues of training, re-orientation to corporate ideals and values, and the provision of adequate equipment and hardware are necessary in order to re-focus the security sector to its vocation. In particular, the police should be provided the basic needs for its operation.

c. Welfare of Officers: The welfare of the security personnel is quite important if their commitment in the discharge of their duties is to be ensured. As it is currently, the welfare of the security forces, especially the police, the armed forces and the prisons are not well catered for. The strike by some cadres of the police based on demands over conditions of service is unprecedented in the history of security forces in the country. Even in the military there are serious uproar of neglect, which if not addressed may undermine the security of the country. There is need for the government to come up with a comprehensive welfare package for security personnel especially those at the lower rank of the services.

d. There is need to overhaul the laws and regulations guiding the operations of some of the security agencies like the police. These laws are essentially colonially rooted and are unsuited for a modern police in a democratic society.

e. A new culture of security forces- civil society relations should be foisted, that will make the security agencies not as predators but partners with the people. The security agencies should be made to be people friendly through a re-orientation and constant dialogue between the security forces and the people. It is only through this that both sides can appreciate each other’s viewpoints and positions.

f. Combating Corruption in the Security Forces: The widespread corruption in the security forces especially the police reflects the low level of moral values in the entire society particularly the political class. Steps that should be taken to combat corruption should include adequate welfare for the forces earlier mentioned, clear rules, regulations and sanctions on corruption related offences, and transparency by the leadership of those institutions.

The Nigerian state has not been able to divorce itself from religious matters. The state is involved in arranging pilgrimages, and public office holders make government houses seat of religious worship. This has created a lot of tension amongst religious groups, as it becomes a more powerful political tool. In addition, the Shari’a issue has created a lot of tension in the country with the state not been able to take a stand on this issue. The shari’a controversy has thrown up other issues like that of minority rights, and citizenship. These are issues to be addressed if the state is not to be engulfed in religious conflagration. The Supreme Court should subject the Shari’a issue to legal interpretation or adjudication with regard to the constitution. There is need to disentangle the state from religion and re-emphasise the security of the Nigerian state. The state must be a neutral arena, separate from religion, in which people of different faiths and those of no faiths can meet on equal terms. Democracy should not be constructed only in terms of majority rule and its wishes, the protection of minority rights, and equal citizenship claims by everyone are crucial elements of democracy.

[1] A recent survey on popular attitudes to democracy in Nigeria reveals, not surprisingly, that the average Nigerian in a crisis situation will first approach a religious priest/malam, and or a traditional ruler. The elected representative comes last in the list. See Afrobarometer survey, “Down to Earth: Changes in Attitudes Toward Democracy and the Markets in Nigeria” November 2001,(www.afrobarometer.org)

[2] As in the case of the electoral laws.