 Many thanks for staying with us and joining us as well. Welcome to our studios this morning. It's the breakfast independence special and Shortly we just listened to the president's speech, but we just head straight to the conversation Right here. We're looking at the state of the nation now And I know we still have a guest with us Adebayo Luake who is the director and principal research fellow African Resource Development Center Now one would want to believe that in spite of anti Crime innovation of the 21st century crime and criminality have been on the increase I mean we will think that we should be making some progress and let's not also forget that 2015 especially with this administration This administration was big on any in security in Nigeria, but that's not the case. Let's turn our attention to our guests now Thank you so much for being with us by a low okay Thanks for having me. All right then So I think we'll start off with on the premise of the president's speech continuation and Do you think that what the president said and our current reality is there? You know some correlation with the thoughts of the president and what we're facing right now To a certain degree yes, you see the the the security problems in the country Have become complicated And I think as a result of several factors But let's first look at what was done, you know up till now I mean at the top of the program when we spoke immediately after the president's broadcast My other colleague said we've had security problems for a long time If we go back just briefly in history We often had what we call riots in Nigeria But if you really analyze some of these so-called riots, they were not actually riots There were some sort of an insurgent activity even though they were limited if you've had of metatonic riots For example and a couple of others and if you consider the fact that we needed to deploy the army And to some extent during in quelling the metatonic riots. We actually had to deploy the air force in Kano To actually quell that and if you also remember that at the onset of the Boko Haram insurgency in Meduguri We also had to deploy the army, you know when Mohammed Yusuf was the founder of Boko Haram was Captured by the army and handed over to the police. So what does that tell us? Nigeria is a country that consistently has been inundated by violence and The the the problem was for example that we now ended up with an insurgency Before we were having pockets of violence They could become really intense over a specific period and they are quelled But with the Boko Haram insurgency from the northeast we ended up with actually an insurgency Which many people in this country never thought would happen, okay? And the responses of both in my opinion state and federal governments at the inception of this crisis Was actually what resulted in the protracted Nature of the crisis that we finally had but what has this administration done? about that There were talks about the kind of Resources that the security forces needed to to to fight to to to to neutralize the threat We had a security force, especially the armed forces trained essentially to do conventional warfare And then now we were faced with an insurgency, which is much more difficult to deal with Complicated by the kind of borders we had Sorry we have especially in the north borders are just open you're going from Niger into Nigeria from my child into Nigeria The mountainous region from the Cameroon in the east and so on so these are some of the complications But then this administration premised its manifesto on dealing with those problems and I think that While the insurgency has reasonably been brought under control We have had other threats open up Terrorism banditry, you know going well beyond the epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgency, which was the northeast Okay, the central part of Nigeria, which is the food basket as we all know became very much affected and then even the southern parts have also been affected and We have so while we have been able to significantly degrade Boko Haram or Iswab and actually push them to the fringes of the lake chart Okay, we have not been able to deal with the other threats that have emerged and everybody knows that Banditry kidnapping and so on and so forth terrorism and I feel that this is the scenario Because we have been using the military to do tasks that are meant for the police We have also been using the military to carry out tasks that are meant for the domestic intelligence service And therefore the military has become overstretched and if we do not correct The problem arising from deploying the military for policing duties I don't think we are going to get out of the security problems for a while So just another one. Some people have said and from history Some people say that the current security concerns that were faced with can be traced back to 1970 shortly after the civil war. It was also reported that there were a lot of arms that was imported into this country And after the civil war, you know people lost their businesses It was a lot and there was need to recover the economy and so arms actually fell into the hands of people who are not I mean jobless people a lot of people and A lot of people believe and history has also stated that that was when you know, I'm rubber became on the high That's why it started in our institutions back then in the 70s 1970s You had the tertiary institution characterized by cult activities When the military also was also in power people needed to protect themselves So you had in schools kidnapping robbery, what have you that can also be you know compared to Terrorism right now that's going on. I mean all of that rape and what have you? assassination mother arson these things actually happened from that time So I'd like to you know, show your thoughts. Do you agree that with the School of Thoughts and with history? We had armed robbery after the civil war. We never had armed robbery in Nigeria before the civil war, you know But I'm robbery surfaced after that's a fact, but not the degree. I wouldn't agree that you know the degree Because if you look at what we had and if you compare us to many other countries, especially African countries that suffered armed conflict The Nigerian the unfortunate Nigerian civil war In terms of weapons management and in the aftermath of that conflict. I think was reasonably well managed You know because you had two minute you had two forces that fought a conventional battle right the Nigerian armed forces the Biafran armed forces It's not like what we have now where you essentially have armed opposition groups taking on state organized armed forces and as a result of the fact that two conventional forces fought and you had the process one of them They were they were came to an end And yes some weapons. There was some proliferation of weapons, but not to the magnitude, you know between 1970 and You know late 90s when we started having sorry early 20s when we started having Boko Haram the gap was too much You know, but we have had situations where weapons entered our territory Because our borders are not properly policed You know and I would think that the proliferation of weapons actually came as a result of our poorest borders But more recently, I believe that we have had a worse name of that weapons proliferation Because of the conflict in Libya which deposed former president Muammar Gaddafi you know and the fact that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries actually Overwhelmed Libya with all kinds of weapons, you know, which I mean we've even seen documentaries about weapons People selling weapons in Libya, you know, you name it any kind of weapon and also from the from the reports We have seen some of the weapons that have been captured from Boko Haram have come from Libya You know, so I think that the worsening state of security in the Sahel and the poorest borders that we have had And the free movement of persons protocol of the economic community of West African states have combined to exacerbate the weapons proliferation in Nigeria, you know And I mean the authorities just have to to significantly try to deal with those those challenges All right interesting It's all that the solutions that will you be on you know unraveling tonight today rather Shall we also be probably something that the next administration can look into me probably so it's already a lost cause You know for this administration, I don't know if you see that but one of the things the president mentioned in his speech And it's a it's photo for us at this point. He said he said in order to address the insecurity We work methodology method method method methodically rather in reducing insurgency in Northeast Meditancy in the Niger Delta ethnic and religious tensions in some parts of Nigeria along with other problems threatening Our country so he mentioned Northeast though We know that the situation already in the Northwest that is now far worse than what is in the Northeast He didn't really mention the Southeast, but we know the situation there even recently. It's become worse What what are your thoughts on on the method because he said they work methodically What I remember is that he said that the IGP should relocate to the Northeast and the IGP didn't relocate and the president said he wasn't aware But the politicians say it wasn't aware. So The method are you are you in support of a gong ho, you know style security? Approach to this or are you in support of a sort of a combined with? Political solution to all of these you see what he had I did in Nigeria Delta and said, you know It will give an amnesty program, which was which of which was you know very black magic ended the insurgency in the south Nigel Delta so what are your thoughts on that because the president also went to say that them as we continue to de-escalate the security challenges that Confronted us at inception of this administration New forms alien to our country began to manifest Especially in the areas of kidnappings, you know molestation and killing innocent citizens of innocent citizens Banditry all of which are being addressed by our security forces Is it just a security problem that we have also the need for political solution to all of these? It's a is it not a double-barreled question. It's a triple-barreled question I think For me actually it's always the the apparatus that we have and we are deploying and How these apparatus are? Operating in synergy Okay First of all the I mentioned the Let's let's let's take the armed forces I Feel very strongly about this because I think it's something that hasn't been particularly discussed in the public space It is not the job of the armed forces to do some of the things it has been asked to do We just have to accept that which is It is the police and the DSS. Okay, the architecture of Nigeria says domestic threats terrorism and all it is the DSS Department of State Services, which used to be the National Security Organization Madame of force into the state security service and it's now the Department of State Services Now the question is have we equipped the DSS Sufficiently to be able to carry out those tasks. Okay, because the paradigm has shifted From what was you know the kind of threat perception that we had and but have we actually positioned the DSS? Have we trained the DSS? Have we hired as many people as to be required because the DSS is a is an intelligent service It's modus operandi and all of that are not for public consumption So and we can only analyze based on what we get in open sources So it's difficult but but what I can what I feel okay from what I read from what I try to analyze Is that the kind of support that has been given to the armed forces? I have not seen and I may be wrong I have not seen this kind of support being provided to the DSS whose primary Responsibility it is to stem domestic threats to Nigeria now I like to what the DSS is supposed to be doing is the police and if you look at the units of the police Take the police mobile force Which people call riot police or whatever? The the police mobile force was established in the first Republic by Prime Minister Taffar Balewa When he visited Malaysia and he was impressed when he saw the paramilitary police that they had and this was introduced to Nigeria But the police mobile force in Nigeria was prepared to respond to the kind of riotous behavior You would find from communities or students Tell me today The scenario has changed have we prepared the police mobile force to be able to respond to the threats today That's a question and I may not be able to answer it But I feel it's a strong question because there was a recent example during the answers when criminals hijacked The the process I did not see police mobile force anywhere. Maybe I'm wrong again Let's come to the police air wing The Nigerian police has an air wing. They have fixed wing aircraft. They have rotary wing aircraft Do we see the Nigerian police air wing in the sky? Do we see police platforms in the sky? Kuja prison was was attacked people were talking about the army. It is not the job of the army to protect prisons Did we see a police helicopter in the sky? If we didn't see police helicopters in the sky What is the problem? Have we equipped the police enough for the police to be able to put its aircraft in the sky? We were asking the Air Force to patrol Abuja Kaduna Rail. The Air Force is a combat service Where we have a police air wing. Why should the Air Force be asked to patrol Abuja Kaduna Rail? So we probably have not equipped our police air wing Okay, now you have the police railway command You see the twin question first asking Air Force to patrol when we have a police air wing And like I said, which presupposes and I may be wrong because I'm only analyzing from open sources Which could presuppose that our police air wing is not has not been equipped to do what it's supposed to do Now we have spent billions building a brand new rail system and we are still expanding that real network We've always had a Nigeria police railway command with headquarters at Ebutemeta, right? We don't where are they? With all the brand new rail systems we have on the ground. Have we revitalized the Nigerian police railway command? Have we retrained Nigerian police railway command? Have we equipped it to the point where it can protect the billions of rail infrastructure we are putting down? I don't see these conversations in the public space Take the police maintenance depart division The police has a maintenance division, right? If you are beginning to deploy drones, which probably will happen I can suspect that the police they're probably thinking of all of this If you're going to be deploying drones if you're going to be deploying CCTV cameras Who are the guys in the police who are supposed to maintain them? It is the police maintenance division What is the state of the police maintenance division today? So when people criticize the police as Not performing and we want to set up state police and by the way I support state police, but if we do not understand why the police is not performing optimally Even the state police will not work because it is the same environment. It is the same values we have Okay, and if we do not address the systemic issues infrastructural issues operational issues issues of the value system of the Nigerian Because if people who are going to be hired they are Nigerians Then we will not have an improvement. So just to close up on this. You cannot use the armed forces You can use the armed forces to support civil authority and our constitution allows for that and actually in many situations We have been deploying the armed forces to support civil authority, but it's supposed to be specific time-bound Okay, and then they go back to their normal functions of protecting the territorial integrity because you train soldiers to kill people Unfortunately as that sounds That's why we keep them in the barracks so that we can account for them at any point in time Because they have to defend this country and in the process of defending this country. They may have to kill Right, so you don't deploy soldiers to stop riots You deploy the police you deploy the paramilitary police But to what extent have we Retrained Funded Motivated the Nigerian police force to be able to if we don't do that We will keep using the military and the military will be overstretched. Well Interesting thoughts there. We have to cope goal, but I wish you had more time, you know to talk But I'm just thinking that I mean really I could feel I know that we have to go But yes, we're out of time But just quickly because he has mentioned all of this the issue of training retraining and funding all of this Is about financing and let's stay with this administration not going back to 1960 because we're here in the past seven budget Circles under the president Bwari. It's reported that 12 trillion narrow has been allocated to the security sector That's based on analysis and I'm saying is 12 trillion narrow not enough You know if you look at the budget in an allocation security seems to take a chunk of the budget Would that not be enough, you know to cater for all of this issue? That's true But it's debatable. You know why I say it's debatable a budget is a statement of intent and You may budget and not actually give all the amount you've budgeted That's why the National Assembly is there to carry out its oversight functions to make sure that Whatever funds have been allocated have been properly utilized But one of the things that I can say in terms of how the order what we call the order of battle of the Nigerian armed forces, you know, the order of battle has changed There's absolutely no argument about that. You can see platforms that have been acquired, you know You I mean for example the the the Air Force got the Super Tucano aircraft, which okay People like to call them jet, but they are turbo prop aircraft. They are no jet aircraft But they have precision weapons. They can help us improve the security situation They can do pinpoint targeting and all those kinds of things the the the army has also been equipped with Excuse me several Infantry fighting vehicles mine mine resistance vehicles to protect the troops and so on and so forth That has happened with the armed forces, you know, but the question is the police. You see because if You capture a territory you have to hold it if you capture a territory This this weight of land in the northeast and in the north that the army the military has deployed into you Don't just chase people out. You have to leave troops there to keep the place secure Okay, and if we had police units well trained well prepared they can close those gaps You know while allowing the military to do more so for me It is not really equipment for the armed forces. It is equipment Motivation training for the police and the DSS. This I think should be the focus especially for this Administration it still has some months to go if this administration can focus on the police and the DSS Equip them properly train them properly Recruitment we have a hundred and fifty thousand police officers doing VIP protection duty All right, so Police we need to hire people to replace these guys. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much for We would certainly love to have you back Mr. Devail law, okay is a director and principal research fellow African Resource development center to sell the independence day special right here on plus TV Africa I'll be right back in up next to look at the state of the Nigerian economy with professor under Busey Nwokoma, please stay with us