I have been asking myself questions of this kind and I am yet to find answers. I don’t really know where to start from but at least I have this to speak of.
Where are our security forces? This is just the biggest question we need to keep asking in a nation troubled with issues of ethnicity, tribalism, nepotism, sectionalism, secessionist movements, separatism, and many more social ills all creating a vacuum for great disintegration and anarchy.
With the turbulence of violence in the North East, heightened secession movements in the South East, the militancy in the South-South, the Herdsmen and settlers troubles in the North central, it is very important for us to commend the roles played by our security forces. May God bless these security apparatus!
Looking back to their roles continentally; our forces brought sanity in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, and many more African countries; this speaks of how dedicated our security forces have been to the task ahead them.
Our security forces have been structured to accommodate our society, but as the society began to lose it value, our security apparatus began to depreciate as well.
Gone are those days where we can hardly see some of these security personnel outside the shores of their offices and barracks as people were leaving more collective and knitted form of lifestyles where religion was subliminal, ethnicity was not more of an issue, and politics was not war with blood shed but a gentleman game.
Today, what we have is an opposite of what we have seen days back. While we were children, we were able to read things in between lines and they made some sense to us; and today, as adults we have seen more yet have little understanding. What we have today seems like an outright disrespect for our security apparatus by the political class.
We have the great Nigerian army, our outstanding police force, our civil defence, and other paramilitary outfits all working for territorial sanity. Despite these security agencies, a lot of agitations have been on ground on the need to establish new ones.
Apologies to the ruling class because I have to say this! Our security institutions have maintained professionalism over the past years and we have successes credited to their own account. What we have today is anarchy everywhere in the system, and this is not because they have not been working but because they have been married to our dear fruitless political journey so they are likely not to produce anything different than a likely predicted outcome similar to the political imprints.
These security setups are understaffed yet they are not distributed fairly. In a country such as Nigeria, these security men are likely to be assigned in large quantum to guard the ruling class, their children, their wives, their relatives who are not even in government, and in some instances their warehouses where loots from our sovereign wealth are being kept; hence, instead of protecting a whole population from harm, they are being forced to protect individuals and in some instances none living things such as the warehouses.
Shameful of it is when our politicians deploy the army and other security forces into civil duties such as elections as it has been rumoured to be so in many places during electioneering time. They have so be-little our security forces out of the greedy nature of men and the power clinging syndrome of our leaders.
If no one would speak for our security forces, at least I have shared this. Let us not begin to wonder where our security forces are or have been to especially now that we need them more.
If our security forces have been left on their own to maintain professionalism all through, crime would be reduced to its barest minimal, theft would be curtailed, some of these agitations would have been subdued; we would have been quite secure and comfortable to go to our farmlands and do things without anyone coming to distort.
When it comes to recruitment into these institutions, professionalism, merits and passion are kept away for political gladiators to insert their so-called god sons into the system. Some of these god sons they have are either sleeping at home, or playing BEN 10 and other cartoons, they are not in touch with reality but they form the new team of players in the security industry………..to cut this story short, they are short sighted in disaster and risk management because they have an inward orientation and they happen to be where an outward orientation is required.
The number of personnel in these security setups need to be increased and our leaders should take an attitudinal change so we can move further. It is quite disheartening to see and speak of how our security institutions have been turned down to shrugs due to some self-acclaimed reasons. I repeat again, It was due to the professionalism of our military that the military government of Gen. Yakubu Gowon was able to win the war against the old Biafran Republic, and on this maxim other military rulers held Nigeria as one.
I still speak to say I respect our security setups and pray that our politicians will allow them to function as designed.
God bless Nigeria!

Evans Binan Dami
Clinical psychologist/writer/researcher/social activist
07035578447
evansbinan@gmail.com
blog: evansbinan.blogspot.com

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Where Are Our Security Forces? Who Will Speak For Them? – By Evans Binan Dami