Brigadier-General J. O. J. Okoloagu (rtd.), a chieftain of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), in this interview with MIKE UBANI, argues that? the provision of jobs to unemployed youths and the conduct of free, fair and credible elections would help stem the tide of insecurity in the South-East in particular, and the country in general.
If you are a member of the security committee set up by the South-East Governors Forum, to work out modalities for fighting the rising rate of criminal activities in the zone, what would be your input to the committee’s work?
I will like to begin by telling you that I was nearly kidnapped on August 2, 2010, when I was travelling to Port Harcourt.? And somewhere around Aba in Abia state, some five youths armed with AK47 riffles jumped onto the road and opened what we call rapid fire in military parlance with the intention of stopping and intimidating us. One of the gun men shot my driver on the chest at close range and he died instantly. My police escort was shot at too.? And because I wasn’t prepared for that rapid fire, I was initially destabilized.? When I got the courage, I remembered that I had my revolver with me.? And I took it and kept it by my side, so when one of the guys asked me to come down, I refused because he did terrible things. He shot the four tyres of my vehicle so that I was completely immobilized. I had a bullet stuck in my chest; my driver shot and killed. So the next thing that occurred to me was to kill somebody before I got killed.
When the guy tried to pull the magazine, I took my revolver and wasted the six rounds on his chest. It is a miracle that I am alive today to tell the story. The lesson we should learn from this encounter is that the South-East, like other parts of Nigeria, is infested with so many deadly armed criminals.? When I killed that guy, his colleagues were shocked because they least expected what happened; they dropped their guns and ran inside the bush. The artificial knee I am carrying today is because I broke my knee bone as I tried to jump out of the car.? When I was flown to India, the doctors said that given my age and every other thing, the best thing was to cut my knee bone and put an artificial one.
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So, how do we fight insecurity in the South-East?
I must tell you that it is an extremely expensive business. For you to tackle security problems, you must go to the root of it. There are so many things that lead young men into violent crimes. The commonest thing is lack of jobs. But in all honesty, the solution to insecurity problem is to invest in security.
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How do we invest in security?
Intelligence gathering is the key to all security operations, whether it is overt or covert. It requires a lot of money to gather intelligence. The only place in the South-East where security is taken as a serious business is Abia state. When those guys attacked me, the response from the government, the passage of information and the mobilization, tells much about a government that is prepared to fight insecurity. In Abia, the government is pro-active, and I must commend Governor Theodore Orji, for being pro-active in terms of fighting insecurity in his state.? Also investing in security means that you must acquire the weapons to counter violence and the weapons will be such that will overwhelm the criminals. The governments in the South-East should set up counter insurgency cells and units in every ward in their respective states, and the informants should be paid regularly. Also, they should engage the services of retired high-level military personnel to assist in fighting insecurity. Abia state did so, and I think that is why the place is relatively safe today. Also, the federal government should grant amnesty to all the Igbo men who participated in the Niger Delta insurgency. You know there was no kidnapping in Igboland until after the federal government granted amnesty to militants from the states of Rivers, Bayelsa, and so on. The militants from Igboland, who as well operated in the creeks of Niger Delta, refused to surrender their weapons because they were not granted amnesty, and they are today using those weapons to terrorize us here. You can imagine the embarrassment it would have caused the country if a retired Nigerian army general was kidnapped.
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So are you proposing that they too should be granted amnesty?
Yes. They should also be given paid jobs or sent for overseas training to acquire skills just like their counterparts from Rivers and Bayelsa. In fact, insecurity will remain with us if we cannot provide jobs for our teeming youths. But you cannot provide jobs if you don’t have good governance. Every day, you see governors commissioning roads, will that create employment? Why can’t they invest in agriculture given the vast acres of land available in the South-East?? And when they do that, they will create employment.??
One of the major problems of the South-East, and I think that contributes to insecurity, is the denial of the electorate the opportunity to elect those who govern them. For instance, if there was an election in Enugu state, I don’t see how somebody like Chimaroke Nnamani would have been governor for eight years. If Igbo people want insecurity to go, they must insist on free, fair and credible elections.
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What is the relationship between insecurity and free, fair and credible elections?
I have participated in two elections in Enugu state and I found out to my amazement that results are simply written by the PDP and given to INEC to announce. The votes by the electorate do not count here. And of course, given the corruption in the country, the judiciary will always do the bidding of the politician who has a big purse.? For instance, I lost my mandate in the Court of Appeal, when I ran for the senatorial seat of Enugu North. If you read the judgment written by a judge who is still serving today, you will be ashamed of the judiciary.? The judge sacrificed justice at the altar of corruption.
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We are still talking about the relationship between insecurity and free and fair elections.
When you don’t have free and fair elections, you end up electing bad leaders. And once you do that, that’s the beginning of insecurity because some of the losers may look for unconventional ways to vent their anger since they cannot get help from the judiciary. This winner take all syndrome is also part of the insecurity. The government that takes care of everybody irrespective of your political party will always succeed. If you put an idiot at the helm of affairs, for goodness sake, he remains an idiot, but if the people are allowed to select their leaders, they will go for credible leaders, and will also help such elected leaders to succeed in office. So many of those people who turned into criminals were hurt one way or the other; some of them were denied their mandate and they are not part of the system. You can see insecurity has so many facets. Many of these PDP people who never won elections but are driving big cars and living flamboyant lifestyles are helping to cause insecurity. If you find a councillor who probably was a bicycle repairer riding a flashy car and lives in a good house because he was rigged into office, you may be forced to do something unlawful to fit into the society defined by the PDP.
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