Rising Militarization of Civil Agencies

Nigeria's history of military rule has bequeathed a tradition of militarization of many aspects of national life including the traditions of new civil defense agencies that assume a para-military culture at creation. This militarization extends even to ethnic militias like the Niger Delta where various militants anoint themselves generals over rag tag fighters within their control. 

Recently, it was reported that the police arrested the commandant of the Peace corps citing a variety of accusations including that the act creating the corps was yet to be ratified by the senate. The other notable complaint was the alleged that the peace corps was opening training camps for new recruits and militarizing them without back ground checks etc. and they were duplicating police duties. 

Many Nigerians have also noted the rise of para-military groups in the country and view it as a misnomer but, it is only just a natural progression of a society that is growing more complex and assertive.

Presently in America, policing is conducted by close to 18000 federal, state, local and city departments fully armed with their separate powers and responsibilities, despite all appearances, America is as close to a peaceful police state as you can get and Nigeria is far behind the curve with its unified police operating like and armed like an army. 

The problem with Nigeria and its social programs is that it provides very few outlets for its youths to channel their aggression, this in a sense has given to the rise to cultism in universities because the youths sense of adventure and the adrenaline rush from youth has not been channeled into positive legal ventures and outlets. Bullies who like to fight have no wrestling, boxing, judo, taekwondo competitions to compete and savage their peers instead the take it out on their weak class mates.

Many young men who viewed the military with awe never got a chance to get into a paramilitary organization to taste that lifestyle first hand to make a career decision in their youth. It does not help that the almost nonexistent and dysfunctional boys scout, girls guide and man o war youth paramilitary groups have been bedridden for years. This accounts in no small measure for cultism and gangs which in part stems from idle youths getting into illegal para-military groups for a sense of self and to join a para-military group. 

Besides the dysfunctional youth programs like the boys scouts, the only other functional youth para military groups include the various military schools in the country, but placement is extremely competitive and sealed off from many young men through nepotism, and exclusivity to the military fraternity. 

The NYSC besides its other noble intentions was created also by an idea to create a reserve army made up of the youth, but the concept was never fully developed, yet the program is militarized by the month-long camp and wearing of uniforms by corpers during their service year.

Many youth longing for a military career eventually find themselves in influential positions and advocate for the creation of new para-military groups giving Nigeria's myriad of security challenges and advocate for equal power under the law. This accounts for the recent victory by the Road safety commission to carry arms just like the police and other military outfits.

Many remember the excitement felt by young men in the land when IBB with maradonic power calculations on his mind announced or proposed the creation of the national guard, and announced its commander, many young men rushed to recruiting centers seeking information on how to get recruited into the national guard.

Besides the advocacy for equality is the fight to wear uniforms with the commandant of each paramilitary group wearing the rank of a full general instead of wearing mufti in the performance of their supposed nonviolent roles in providing security and social related services to the public.

The other issue is that many of these para-military organizations are not self-funded but seek to secure funding and authority from the beleaguered Nigerian state. 

Nigeria needs to realize the predicament of its restive unemployed youth and should invest money in paramilitary youth programs and open the military, Police, customs etc. to more expanded field recruitment of every willing youth who can pass new. Strict and vigorous standards for recruitment into the armed forces which will in the very least help many youth and new generation of adults to bury their pre-occupation to bear arms and become militarized after tasting the harsh conditions of military type discipline.

Only then will These advocates cool down the agitation for armed para military groups and opt for peaceful civilian agencies to carry out peaceful initiatives for the rule of law and justice in the country.

By Terhemba Osuji



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Economics - Another Useless Degree in Nigeria

To those studying Economics hoping for a banking career, please understand that With the increasing sophistication of electronic banking, transfer services, ATM’s and POS machines, the need for bankers will fall and there will be a decline in recruitment in that area. To be more concise, ECONOMICS is one of the growing number of useless courses if the curriculum is not quantitative based and focused on modeling outcomes and forecasting trends based on real time statistics and data.  Here are the jobs available to Economics graduates overseas: 1. Economist  2. Financial risk analyst 3. Data Analyst 4. Financial Planner 5. Accountant 6. Economic Researcher 7. Financial Consultant 8. Investment Analyst  9. Actuary 10. teaching 11. Public sector Based on this list, we can immediately eliminate 2,4,8,9, give some deferential award to 1,3,6 that in Nigeria all lead to 11 in policy roles, with the remaining extract from all defaulting to 10 or finally outside economics in the wo...
Read more

Re-Indoctrination Before Restructuring

Whenever you talk about poor governance, Nigerians always mention restructuring as the catch all panacea to fix all problems and issues. But very few Nigerians really know what type of restructuring is needed or how to secure this much needed restructuring in practice.  Many believe restructuring is about returning to the regional government system predating 1966, and tagging on a few new regions, while others wish to retain the federalist state structure and others wish for tribal governments for each of Nigeria nearly 360 indigenous tribes.  Others talk about super imposing a true federalist structures over whatever system but to ensure regional control of resources, most of that agitation seems to be driven by the south east and south-south zones sitting on crude oil reserves, followed by a devolution of items on the exclusive list to those new federalist units.  Others see restructuring as repeal of the 1999 constitution in its entirety and fashioning a new constituti...
Read more

PRESIDENT BUHARI’S DESTINED TO FAIL PROVINCIAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

Where is Nigeria’s Minister of State, Kachikwu? Apparently, he has been sidelined in favor of Baru searching for crude in the lake chad Basin.  It is not enough that Nigeria has been structured on a ridiculously, uneconomic and wasteful system of drilling in the south and pipelining the crude all the way up to Kaduna for refinement.  Now Buhari has become fixated with finding oil in the north to complete his economic linkage plan after the planned completion of the dry inland port and a railway linking from there all the way to Chad and Cameroon for his Kanuri relative smugglers to prosper selling petrol and other banned items without paying Nigeria excise duties unlike the militarized border around Lagos with the republic of Benin. You can almost feel the gasping for air exasperation of Buhari as he is confronted with yet another failure to find crude and I can hear his iron willed response to keep on drilling to find oil at all costs so he and the north can be rid or done wi...
Read more