I owe this title to my younger brother, Chukwuemeka Onwubiko, a philosopher and distinguished scholar based in Australia. As can be deciphered, theatricalisation simply comes from the word theatre and it is a notorious fact that in reality, the theatre is a public space whereby audiences are entertained by creative entertainers such as comedians and musicians and even clowns are fundamental components of the performers in a theatre.
For the benefit of Nigerians, let me use the huge public asset built in Iganmu, Lagos, by the Federal Government, known as the National Arts Theatre. The question to be asked then is why introduce the concept of a theatre while addressing a very serious issue as security of lives and property of Nigerians. It is such an important concept necessary for the survival of all political entities that Nigeria’s supreme law – the Constitution – recognised security as the primary duty of government. The fact remains that in the last several years, Nigeria has come under intense criticism for abysmally failing to protect the lives and property of citizens. In the last 16 years, for example, many instances of security challenges have occurred which graphically portrayed Nigeria as a near lawless entity. Going by the fact that insecurity perdure or endure for such a long period of time, most observers have come to the conclusion that the institutionalisation of impunity induces lawlessness and insecurity. For a fact, since 1999 till date, Nigerians know that a lot of crime has been committed without the security agencies and the operatives laying their hands and arresting the masterminds of such breaches of security and rule of law. Over these years, the security agencies that have failed to build good-enough volume of intelligence to prevent crime have further added a new low by playing funny and, indeed, unprofessional roles in the handling of investigation of serious crimes. I will use a particular case of the killing of a senior editor of The Guardian, since over six years now as a case study, to show the lack of professional capacities and competences in the various Nigerian security establishments. I will use also Chief Olu Falae’s kidnap by armed Fulani herdsmen, incessant attacks on villagers and the gruesome murder of villagers in the North-Central states by suspected Fulani herdsmen as instances of theatricalisation of security in Nigeria. It is as if while Nigeria burns and burdened by widespread insecurity, the hierarchies of the Nigerian security community are playing to the gallery, behaving in most profoundly unprofessional manner. Take, for instance, the Department of State Service or the State Security Services, as the case may be, were recently engaged in a public show of shame over the parade of two different sets of suspects as those who allegedly gunned down the then Chief Private Secretary to the Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Mr Olaitan Oyerinde. The DSS paraded one set of killers whereas the Nigeria Police Force paraded another set of suspects as the killers of Mr Oyerinde. Till date, nothing has happened to name and shame those security officers that misled Nigerians in this assassination of a Nigerian who worked with a state governor. The inefficiency and incompetence in high display among the security agencies has created the unfortunate impression that human life, which is universally sacred, is too cheap in Nigeria. Many instances of broad day murders have happened and the killers are moving about as free persons and possibly re-committing further crimes of murder. Members of the National Youth Service Corps slaughtered in Bauchi State by alleged supporters of former Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) founded by Gen Buhari (rtd) and on which platform he contested the 2011 presidential election; after the polls was adjudged to have been won by the PDP’s Dr Goodluck Jonathan. Till date, none of these killers have been arrested or prosecuted.
That assassination of Chief Private Secretary of Governor Oshiomhole was, indeed, the perfect theatricalisation of security in Nigeria. On the invasion of Falae’s farm in Ondo State by Fulani herdsmen - who also kidnapped the former finance minister, and secretary to the government of the federation for a week and didn't release him until they extorted N5 million ransom from the family members - the DSS, again, enacted a version of theatricalisation of security operation.
It's sad enough to recall that it took the personal directive of President Buhari before the police inspector-general left his air-conditioned office in Abuja to head to Ondo State, where he spent some days before Chief Falae showed up, after he was dumped by his abductors somewhere in an evil forest. But the DSS or is it SSS have further muddled up issues.
The Department of State Service has just introduced theatricalisation of security in Nigeria, which may result in the unwillingness of the Federal Government to apprehend and punish appropriately in the competent courts of law, these dare-devil terrorists who invaded the farm of a septuagenarian and kidnapped him, after wrestling him to the ground while attempting to bundle him away. Now, the hierarchy of Department of State Service headed by a man from Daura, a Fulani settlement in Katsina State, has dismissed the plank of allegations that the culprits who kidnapped Chief Falae were Fulani herdsmen. The DSS said those who kidnapped the elder statesman were criminals and not Fulani herdsmen, even against clear evidence rendered by the suspects being paraded that they are Fulani herdsmen. Why is the DSS interested in doing public relations gambit for the Fulani ethnic nationality instead of concentrating the professional competences of their investigators to unravel the causes of the emerging criminal acts of robbery and terrorism by Fulani herdsmen? Sociologically, and to a large extent in the criminology field, the best way to combat a crime is to determine the symptomatic roots of that specie of criminality. The nation is undeniably facing the incessant attacks of communities and farmlands by Fulani herdsmen. Now that they have added kidnapping for ransom, what is logically expected from the security agencies is not to engage in rhetorical defence of the ethnic origin of the offenders but to fight the root cause of the crime. This is the reason why Nigeria hasn’t made much progress, because security chiefs behave like big brothers of their ethnicity, even when these acts are classified as crime against humanity committed by persons from same ethnic origin like the security chiefs in question.
People are beginning to read meanings into the apparent silence of President Buhari, a Fulani by origin, at the groundswell of allegations that some Fulani herdsmen have constituted themselves into criminal nuisances all over. Why should the Commander-in-Chief maintain a deafening silence when crimes of genocide are being carried out by a class of people and the security officials are sounding defensive? Several communities on the Plateau have been destroyed and hundreds of villagers slaughtered by Fulani herdsmen, and the Nigerian President is unconcerned and hasn't done anything to control these criminal acts, when he has the primary duty given by the Constitution to protect lives and property of Nigerians. In 2009, News Editor of The Guardian Newspaper, Bayo Ohu, was murdered by assailants, in what the press said looked like a contracted murder mission. Mr Ohu’s life was cut short in the early hours of a particular Sunday in September of 2009, when assailants visited his Akowonjo home, in Lagos State of Nigeria; knocked on his apartment door and shot him at point-blank range. Only his personal laptop was taken away.
Until his death, Mr Ohu also headed the Political Desk of The Guardian Newspapers. He was described as a loyal and consistent journalist. This writer worked as professional colleagues in The Guardian and so his assassination was a personal loss to me as well as all others who knew him to be friendly, accommodating, understanding and compassionate. His death, just like dozens of other unresolved murders, has left a big riddle for the Nigerian police. Similar murder of another journalist, which occurred last year, is yet to be unravelled. Chief Bola Ige, SAN, a serving federal attorney-general and minister of justice under the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, was gunned down in his home in Ibadan, Oyo State. But till date, since 2003 or there about, no culprit has been prosecuted.
According to The Guardian of September 21, 2009, a six-man gang had invaded the home of the journalist at exactly 7.00 am on Sunday morning, demanding to see the journalist whose wife had already gone for Sunday morning service.
The gang was said to have arrived at the residence driving in a white Toyota Camry, pretending to be casual visitors. They reportedly double-checked and ensured that he was dead before they left, apparently giving way to rumours that the attack was premeditated as either an act of revenge or just a get-out-of-my-way contracted murder assignment. They made away only with the journalist’s laptop computer. Sources informed that the late reporter was at home with his four children when the gunmen arrived at the house. The late journalist responded to a knock on his door, and as he opened they shot at him immediately. The six-man gang members immediately forced their way into the house picking up his laptop and double-checked his body to ensure that he was dead before fleeing in their car.
Spokesman for the Lagos State Police Command then, Frank Mba, who visited the journalist’s home on the same Sunday, confirmed that the police had begun investigations into the murder. The reporter who filed the story of the dastardly crime of the murder of Mr Ohu had a similar description of theatricalisation of security that I have enumerated when he reported thus: “Confidence in Nigerian police has been waning in the light of the two murders, as journalist union bodies continue to pressurise Nigerian Police (Lagos State Command) on the need for the security and safety of the public in Lagos State to be guaranteed. However, lives of journalists who remain the last hope of the Nigerian populace remain to be in danger in the face of the current murder and the other unsolved case, which had given the police much more challenges.”
The Lagos chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists also described Ohu’s death as a clear case of murder, rather than robbery which was being attached to it. They called on the Presidency to intervene and fish out the culprits of the two murder cases, in the spirit of the safety of life of journalists and entire citizens of Nigeria. These scenarios pointed out in the report as filed in The Guardian shows how the security agents dramatise crime and, therefore, are not professionally committed to solve crimes, which makes Nigeria look like a criminal enterprise. Do-go-Nahawa in Plateau State was reduced to rubbles by armed Fulani herdsmen, just as children, men and women were murdered in their sleep. But till date, no culprits have faced the weight of the law. From 2009 till date, over 25,000 persons have died from the bloody activities of armed terrorists of Boko Haram, yet, the DSS has till date not pinpointed the masterminds who should be made to face the music in the court of law. We must stop playing comedy with security issues, if we must overcome the regime of impunity.
•RIGHTSVIEW appears on Wednesdays, in addition to special appearances. The Columnist, popular activist Emmanuel Onwubiko, is a former Federal Commissioner of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission and presently National Coordinator of Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA).
