The post-imperial dominion hits back

   While all this is going on, the biggest elephant in the room remains the state as the absolute determinant from which every other national security flows. Without securing the state in all its hegemonic impregnability nothing is safe or secure. Nigeria, with its chaotic politics and even more system-destabilizing political class, presents a composite picture of a state that is resilient in its capacity to absorb punishment and withstand pressure but whose structural frailties are also well-advertised. For the better part of two decades, Nigeria has been prey and hostage to a multi-dimensional insurgency which sometimes threatens to overwhelm the state and the entire nation.

At the last count, the relentless onslaught by forces of occupation and recolonization has reached the outer perimeter of Yoruba territory in both Kwara and Kogi states. For those who nurse ancestral memories of feudal subjugation, it is like flagging a red rag before a distempered bull. As a result of this, forces of separation or forcible disintegration are beginning to emerge in the horizon once again playing up to the Yoruba perennial fear and collective phobia of domination and persecution. If the security situation deteriorates henceforth, the consequences will be dire indeed and could put the forthcoming elections in acute jeopardy.

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  In fairness to the government, although it often appears to be lax and languid in combatting this most potent threat to the continued viability and existence of the Nigerian state probably due to consideration for political and regional sensitivity, it has never been short of proactive measures in squaring up to the menace. This past week, the authorities announced the trial of over six hundred suspected terrorists. In terms of number and scale, this is unprecedented in the annals of terror-fighting in the nation. The troops have also shown a renewed resolve to carry the battle to the dens of insurgency. Lest we forget, there are also American troops on ground at this moment in the country.

 Latching on to romantic notions of the First Republic as a cudgel and yardstick with which to beat the wayward present into submission, a consensus appears to have coalesced around going back to the decentralization of authority and devolution of power which seemed to have served the nation so well until authoritarian intolerance suborned everything. After years of stalling and stonewalling during which many of its leading lights and apostles of unbridled unitarism exhibited an undisguised aversion and even contempt for the very idea of restructuring, the federal authorities now appear to have softened its stance and may be willing to try out an old notion now necessarily refurbished.

   Yet it is curious that the very notion of restructuring which is an imperative and desideratum for all living entities and organizations hoping for survival in the face of fresh challenges and new developments should provoke such hostility and animus among significant sections of the ruling class. It is a measure of the many unresolved aspects of the National Question with countervailing notions of the nation and its nature.  The multi-ethnic nation cobbled together for colonial economic necessity and seething with tension and mutual hostilities just below the surface is not amenable  to easy compromises and shallow, skin-deep conciliations.

However that may be, many believe that the silver bullet in the new thinking is the proposed decentralization of the bloated, inefficient unitary structure that has turned the Nigerian Police Force into a sick and criminal joke incapable of solving or preventing crimes against ordinary citizens not to talk of securing the state itself against criminal infractions and breaches of its fundamental raison d'etre. Nothing concentrates the mind more than a sudden awareness of potentially fatal vulnerabilities. The handshake has gone beyond the elbow for the postcolonial state in Nigeria. The vultures of rapid decomposition are circling, waiting for the telltale signs of the end.

  Despite the substantial consensus that immediate restructuring without any tardiness or political tackiness may provide the nation an escape route through the backdoor from the path of self-immolation, there remains a significant body of contrary opinions that insists that restructuring, particularly the idea of decentralization of the police and other security agencies is a mere symptom in search of an ailment. This is not the garden variety gossip or traditional “wailing”. They come with considerable political gravitas and intellectual gravamen. It is important to listen to them in order to arrive at a healthy synthesis and the more perfect union that has eluded the country since the irruption of the military into the political process. What follows is a contribution along such lines.