When Government Fails

Nigeria’s security crisis is birthing quasi-security arrangements. The security agencies are currently overwhelmed by the assortment of security challenges, and numerous alternative responses have sprung up to salvage the situation. The Southwest zone has long taken the initiative to establish the Amotekun, a regional security outfit. Other regions are at different stages of recreating similar structures. In the Southeast, the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has announced the creation of a security outfit for “Biafra land”.

The Southeast situation is complicated. The region is the theatre of pro-Biafra secession in Nigeria. Clashes with security agencies in 2017 led to the group’s proscription. However, it has not ended the agitations. In August 2020, friction between security agencies and Biafran agitators led to the death of two security operatives and twenty-one IPOB members in Emene, Enugu state.

IPOB has been the most vocal about Biafra secessionism in recent times and has managed to mobilise youths for its security network. The new security outfit is poised to replicate Amotekun in the Southwest and the Miyetti Allah security outfit, according to an IPOB member. While state governments in other regions may have taken most of the charge to securitise communities, IPOB, a non-state group is taking a lead in the Southeast.

Nextier SPD’s reports predicted a trend of new militias in response to insecurity. The article Civilians in Arms holds that Nigeria\’s inability to govern and establish effective presence in rural areas will allow violent conflict to fester. It maintains that many affected communities are forming militias groups, usually along identity lines to defend themselves. This is similar to what IPOB claims to do in reaction to the alleged rampage of cattle herders and other criminal groups in the Southeast zone.

Security outfits must not be predicated on group’s defence against another group. Proactive governments are readily disposed to maintaining the monopoly of the instrument of violence. Southeast state governments must step-up to this development. The security network by IPOB spells group violence as clashes between them and cattle herders are almost inevitable. For instance, in July 2020, while there was no official explanation for the clashes between vigilantes and herders in Imo state, news sources suggest the vigilantes were chasing herders away from the state. IPOB may have identified a security gap in the Southeast which state governments have failed to fill up.

State governments in the Southeast in partnership with the federal government must improve security in the region, especially as it pertains to the feud between herders and residents. Ending the problem of rural insecurity will make IPOB\’s security network redundant. Second, engagement of IPOB\’s agitations must include a non-kinetic alternative. Nextier SPD\’s Between Communicative Engagement and Secession Movements recommends shifting of government\’s response, since aggressive measures over the years have not ended the protests but led to loss of lives and investments. The article proposes the deployment of a conflict expert group to mediate the process of communicative engagement as it would promote interfacing with government and the secessionist group. Government must step up to perform its roles of protecting the public; otherwise, non-state groups will take the advantage to present themselves as the messiah of the masses.