Checkpoints in Peril: Who’s responsible for attacks on security personnel?

I have always been grieved by the incessant killing of our security personnel, especially the army and police, by non-state actors especially at check points and guard duties. If I am worried by the increasing number of these attacks and the casualties, I am even more worried by the seeming lack of solutions to this sad situation by the people involved, the security personnel themselves and their seeming helplessness. It may not be wrong to say that Nigeria that is not at war is losing far more of her security personnel under these circumstances than countries that are at war.

 

I am not a security expert, in fact far from it, but some empirical observations seem to tell me that there are a few things that may help. I do not know if they will but let me unburden my heart by sharing them.

 

Way back in the 1990s, as a young man working in Aba, Abia State, I was travelling and was around Aba North LGA when we heard a gun shot, I was bewildered and frightened as I beheld people I presumed to be fellow citizens and ordinary travellers probably going to the park as I was pulling out guns from their travelling bags and sacs in very professinal marnner with their countenances changed and battle ready. They quietely resumed their idle civilian pose when there was no further escalation of the threat. That was when it dawned on me that they were security personnel disguised as bloody civilians. I ask, what has happened to this type of quiet security sophistication in Nigeria? If this type of effective but quiete and unobtrusive, pervasive security strategy that I witnessed in Aba in the 1990s is still present in present day Nigeria, crime rate would not have risen the way it has and if such covert sophisticated security strategies are consciously re-introduced into Nigeria today, our security situation and the killings in our land could be down by more than half.

 

First will be that one may not know that there is security but many criminal acts would be adequately and effectively responded to sometimes if not most times. The fear of not knowing when and where security personnel are will deter the criminals to a great extent.

 

Our security personnel, may be due to their present military and intimidation mentality, usually want to be highly visible, more often to intimidate the populace than to do any effective security work. This makes them highly visible, pathetically isolated and outnumbered and probably give the criminal elements the ‘we and them’ mentality that emboldens the criminals to attack them since they are highly visible, hopelessly outnumbered and therefore easy preys.

 

When I travelled to Isreal in 2012, there was no visible police presence and one rarely saw soldiers. We were really frightened deep down. What with all the stories of wars and upheavels of Isreal and their hostile neighbours. I was later shocked, as many other Nigerian pilgrims, to learn and, in deed, see that even some of the pretty ladies in the hotel where we were lodged, whom if it was in Nigeria, could be visitors or hook up artists, were security personnel. We actually saw the pistols of a few of them. That was how, some of us Nigerian doubting Thomases, were convinced that they were security personnel and that we had adequate security. We did not know how many they were and where they were positioned. In fact, we felt that any strange face to us was a security personnel. This automatically gave the Isrealis and their security architecture a pervasive and intimidating presence and aura. Compare this to Nigeria where 2 or 3 poorly-equipped forlon-looking policemen would be loitering among the multitude around the hotel.

 

However, if we were missing the inneffective and chaotic Nigeria security scenario in Isreal, we were to meet the replica the following day when we visited Palestinia. As soon as we left the serene, sophisticated and seemingly no police/military presence in Isreal and crossed the border to the Palestinian side, we were confronted by highly visible and uniformed palestenian police and military aggressively wielding their huge long guns of various descriptions, physically searching people. Even the Nigerian pilgrims all noticed the difference and some even voiced the fact that this people’s security was like Nigeria’s.

 

Coming to the issue of our security personnel at check points and on guard duties, one still wonders why they have not been able to fathom the danger of their huddling together in one lonely and isolated spot in their check points and guard duties, seemingly obilivious of the danger they expose themselves to by this singular attitude.

 

One is pained that even as they are attacked and killed frequently in their check points and at guard duties in every part of the country without even for once attacking back and getting even one or two dare devil culprits killed, can they not see that there is something very wrong that they are doing?

 

Same staying together inside police stations, especially at night and most times inside or in front of the police station is why so many police stations successfully get attacked and or get burnt at night and policemen killed without their combating or repelling the hoodlums. So also with security personnel on guard duties following their principals closely and sheepishly, unmindful of their environment.

 

Even when they are driving or travelling with their principals, one sees them huddled in one or 2 vehicles in their full uniform. No disguised or masked intelligence strategy or back up to fight back in case of any attack or danger. And one will be reading painful happenings like 5, 6, 7 or even more security personnel ambushed, killed and burnt; not once, not twice. Can’t some personnel stay a little distance away from the scene, hidden and prepared for any eventualities. Can’t some stay a little bit away, keeping surveillance and coming in handy in the event of any attacks?

 

One is not a security expert but I ask, if some security personnel in uniform are staying in a check point, can’t some of them who are in or out of uniform stay a distance away, eg 100 meters or so away on either side of the check points watching approaching human beings, vehicles and the environment? If this happens in our check points, there cannot be any case of anybody coming to kill our security personnel without one or 2 or all of such people being killed in return, apprehended or at least wounded by these other ones that are keeping surveillance. And once they know that they cannot attempt killing security personnel without consequences to themselves, they will stop or at least think twice before embarking on such adventures.

 

Also, why will there not be some of these personnel desiguised as civilians but fully equipped and battle ready for any such assault which has become common place?

 

When the dreaded armed robber, Anini was caught, journalist asked him how they were able to beat the numerous police checkpoints on the highways. He laughed and told them that was the easiest part of their exploits. When asked how, he told them that the police men usually huddled together with their long guns in one spot at check points and almost always didn’t have the time to react and even raise their guns as they beat them by speeding through the check points. It was really after this incident that in some check points today, some policemen stay with their guns some distance away from the ones conducting the searches. But this happens only ocassionally and in a few check points.

 

But the truth be told, Nigerian security apparatus needs a lot of rejigging and retrofitting both in terms of personnel, equipment, orientation and strategy. May be because of our long interaction with the military, they tend to lean too much towards more brawn than brain. They exhibit more intimidation and visibility to oppress and frighten the civilans more than striving to be less visible, urbane and effective. That is trully a big part of their problem because they are working hard to always highlight themselves as conquerors cum oppressors and intimidate the citizenry thereby highlighting their fewer numbers in any environment they are in and making themselves easy targets for criminals in the process.

 

Please let our country and her security institutions stop these avoidable and incessant killings of our security personnel especially at check points and during guard duties. Nobody deserves death because of doing his or her duties especially when such deaths can be avoided.