The longer the devastating insecurity that has beset Nigeria for years on end continues unhindered, the more the perverse elements and despicable characters behind this organised and structured destabilisation of the nation become impudent and virulent in their conduct. They become brazen in the perpetration of the abhorrent and distasteful acts. For so long and for as long as the insecurity and relative instability that envelop the nation have persisted, the question of why the government cannot seem to find a lasting solution to these bloodletting and restiveness has weighed heavily on the minds of Nigerians who are genuinely concerned and puzzled by the government’s seeming indifference to the man-made conundrum.
Of course, Nigerians are not fooled by the government’s tame and perfunctory efforts to tackle insecurity through the disturbingly ineffective non-kinetic means. They are fully aware that the government knows what it needs to do to not only end the insecurity ravaging the nation but also ensure that those behind it face the full wrath of the law. However, while we ponder and debate on the government’s political will or lack of it to fight terrorism to a standstill, we are gradually waltzing into a dangerous territory and period where terrorism becomes fully mainstreamed and the concomitant evil and horror attached to it becomes normalised due to government’s refusal to do what is right to destroy the network of terrorists and their apologists.
In recent months, terrorists have shared the spoils of their heinous crimes, whether ransom collected from families of kidnapped victims or a cache of weapons stolen during many of their ambushes against security operatives, on social media. They are also in the habit of posting their frightening movements on motorcycles as they maraud through villages and towns, looting, plundering and committing unspeakable horror against unarmed and helpless residents of these enclaves.
The inability or refusal of the government to use these videos shared on social media by these terrorists is not due to a lack of capacity or the absence of modern and sophisticated technology needed to embark on such complex but crucial digital operations. It is worth noting that these videos contain geotags that identify the location of the terrorists. The government has repeatedly demonstrated that it has the means and resources to locate and go after anyone who engages in activities considered detrimental to public peace and undermines constituted authority. In October, one Innocent Chukwuemeka Onukwume was tracked down to his base in Port Harcourt by operatives of the Department of State Services after he allegedly called for a military takeover in the country. The 27-year-old was later apprehended and charged in court.
The DSS did not give excuses as to why they cannot use the social media post of Onukwume, who obviously has not done anything close to the depraved and uniquely evil actions of the terrorists that have conveniently continued to elude our security forces, to track him down and arrest him. The unintended consequences, or maybe it is actually intended, of terrorists having so much freedom and leeway to act however they wish to the extent that they start posting themselves on social media is that the deepening security crisis that we’re grappling with now will worsen.
Already, due to the sheer number of reports of the atrocities of these devil incarnates that we are inundated with daily, we’ve somehow become somewhat numb and desensitised to their reprehensible and distasteful actions, now having them integrate and infuse themselves into the digital ecosystem of everyday people who leave normal live and for whom the terrorists unceasing acts of violence and carnage are alien culture only serves to hasten the depletion of whatever is left of our shock value for terrorism.
Furthermore, having a comfortable presence on popular digital and social media platforms that many kids have unfettered access to means that they can easily expand their recruitment pipeline through radicalisation of impressionable young people and luring of poor adults, who want to make quick cash and are ready to do so through immoral and despicable means, with financial incentives. This is a dangerous and treacherous slope that we cannot afford to slide into. Public display of high-end military-grade weapons, open celebration of spoils and proceeds of crime and violence as if they were just another social media content designed to amuse and entertain the public, cannot become our new normal.
This is no longer an insecurity. It is a complete collapse of guardrails that protect a populace from being vulnerable to a nation’s loss of its monopoly on violence. It’s a national susceptibility unfolding in full public view, in real-time, on social media feeds. It is a slow but potent social reengineering of the populace to accept a deeply abhorrent and utterly unconscionable action as normal. When criminals take over social media spaces that are also accessible to children, terrorism starts to look like a noble and just cause.
It is also psychological warfare. These videos are designed to strike fear, erode public trust and confidence and make the state look impotent and ineffective. The mere fact that these videos are being put there and gaining traction is bad for our already battered and uninspiring image. They make a mockery of the intelligence agency and belittle our security operatives in general. Another concern is that we may soon find ourselves grappling with the proliferation of terrorists’ social media pages. Bad and unpleasant behaviour without consequence always encourages others to misbehave, our dear country has mastered the art of not punishing offenders enough.
Since we’ve been able to establish with an appreciable degree of certainty that the problem is not a lack of capacity to go after these terrorists but the absence of political will by those tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that we don’t become a nation where acts of terror become a normal daily routine. We cannot afford to politicise the security of lives and properties. The need to rid the country of sick and deranged characters whose goal is to turn it into an unlivable enclave cannot become a bargaining tool in the quest for power. Politics and power should not override the need to protect the populace from an existential insecurity.
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