Terrorism, banditry: human body security system speaks! — by Femi Kusa

PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu is saying Nigeria’s insecurity problem are causing him sleepless nights, depriving him of sound sleep, causing him to lose weight and age faster than he probably would have, and that all these personal problems are hidden underneath his heavy native robes. I believe the President. Only a leader who is not a human being would relish bleeding of his land.

Unlike many of his critics who wish to hold him responsible for the flourish of terrorism in Nigeria, I sympathise with the President. For many of us, through our small and gigantic ways and means, principally Major-General J.T.U Aguiyi-Ironsi, caused and are fuelling this problem, happy to play the blame game and find a leader on whose head to place the crown of thorns. Problems are not solved thereby, but by dispassionately studying our roles in them, removing ourselves from the equations and watching the geometry collapse. We are meant to be human beings, and recognise that we are mere creatures who created nothing, not even one strand of hair on our scalps. Something gave rise to everything with templates for everything replicable from everything created.

The security architecture of human society should adopt the template of the human body security architecture which we humans did not create and is serving us well. It is a multi-layered system which doctors, Physiologists, biologists, and medical scientists know much about. When President Tinubu beared his thoughts to us, my memory sprang to my high school Health Science class with born teacher Mr. S.O. Kolade who was too glad always to hurl us beyond “O” Level syllabus. It was through him, while we studied the body’s responses to diseases, that we learned that the body defence itself against disease germs at about Six basic levels…the organelles, the cells, the tissue, the organ, the individual system and the systemic (entire body) system.

The human body has many lessons in its security architecture to teach Nigerians and their policing and military security systems. Germs, free radical molecules, toxins, heavy metals and parasites are “Terrorists” and “Bandits” in the human body. In one level teaspoon of feces or poop in the intestine, there are between 50 million and 500 million germs, all “terrorists” and “bandits” which can maim or damage or even kill the human body.

In this column, I argue that terrorism is growing in Nigeria because the country security architecture does not follow this natural template. Nigeria’s founding fathers gave Nigeria only three of these six layers. In his UNIFICATION DECREE of 1966, Major Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi reduced them to two… Armed Forces and Nigeria Police. The three regional Local Government police forces were eliminated to give him absolute control over the country. All other Nigerian leaders kept the system. Today, President Tinubu would have to reverse Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi’s blunder to conquer terrorism, banditry and kidnapping.

THE CROWN OF THORNS

From the foregoing, who takes the blame for Nigeria’s insecurity under terrorists, bandits and kidnappers? We should not forget Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi who demolished an evolving FEDERALIST SECURITY ARCHITECTURE of Nigeria’s founding fathers and plunged the nation into a unitary pseudo-federal system with subverted policing architecture.

President Shehu Shagari kept the bastardised structure because it gave him unlimited control over the country, even if policing was inefficient and ineffective. Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua, Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari followed the tracks.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took the bull by the horns, opposed initially by vested interest, including Nigeria’s police force, as this matter involves Constitutional Amendment. Doggedly he has moved on towards a new, better and more secure policing architecture which the National Assembly finally agreed last week to “fast-track”.

So, in my view, President Tinubu deserves praise from all of us. The crown of thorns belongs to some other heads.