 Welcome back. The security situation in Kaduna State is once again a source of concern as several people have been kidnapped. Reportedly by bandits who attacked travelers along the Kaduna Benengwari Road in Kaduna State. Sources said the bandits blocked the highway on Tuesday and in the process set about eight vehicles ablaze. They were said to have later taken away an unspecified number of travelers, mostly women and children, to an unknown location. Now although the police authorities in the state are yet to confirm the incident, it isn't clear if any life was lost in that particular attack. Now the chairman of Benengwari Vangets for security and good governance Ibrahim Nagwari confirmed the attack in a statement he issued in his narration. He said bandits blocked the Benengwari Kaduna highway and intercepted a convoy of motorists with security escorts between Kuriga and Manimi where they left with an unspecified number of people into the bush. Nagwari also raised fear that the armed men have formed an alliance with the Ansaru terrorist group to declare war on the residents of Benengwari, stressing that the political will of the government to tackle the security threats has remained a mirage, a really, really sad situation. We have joining us this morning on the breakfast to discuss this unfortunate incident, a security expert Dr Roy Ohidyevyeh. Dr Ohidyevyeh, good morning to you and thank you very much for your time. Yeah, good morning, it's always a pleasure. All right, Kaduna State is in the news again. It seems that those traveling interstate or from other states to Kaduna within Kaduna State moving convoys. This particular incident happened according to that statement by the person we mentioned there. They were in a convoy and they had security experts and yet a security escort and yet still they were attacked by bandits and abducted. Well, you in your preview, you have actually come forward with the discerning situation we find ourselves. I served in Kaduna for nine years in one Mechanizing Party position from 1990 to 1999 as a young soldier. Now Kaduna is blessed with a lot of security agencies, training schools, headquarters, you know, and is just spread all around both the prisons, the police, the military. So you begin to wonder what is happening, you know. In those days we used to do bush exercise just training or retraining or repression. We go into the bush from Jaji down to Zarya or from Jaji down to Kaduna all in the bush and come out in Kaduna South. We know all of those places from the air. It's easy to just get the triangles. It's also when we begin to face this kind of crisis you will understand that there is compromise. Even the chief of army staff, see the chief of army staff came out to say that there are infiltrators in the military. So if we know also that the improvement of Kaduna State has also helped theories of liaison meetings with quote and unquote bandits and they have given these people money many times in the guise of buying peace. Now we have also seen where so we arrested no criminal justice system where such and such persons are taken through the criminal justice system. Penalties are flowing to court table offenses you were caught with, you know. So none of that is happening. So what are we seeing? All right. Dr Roy or Ohidia via let's take a pause at this juncture to play a clip of what transpired on that road and see what happened to the the victims. This is user generated content so the court shouldn't be the highest but we'll listen to that and we'll come back to you. All right. Dr Roy or Ohidia via you online. So I just do a next time explain of what really happened happened in that video. You had one of the the people in the car where the video was being shot shouting shigashi which means enter, enter, enter. And what happened was that the clip shows passengers who deserted their vehicle and were running away. Maybe they have been running for some time. Someone come with a vehicle to ask what's happening and offering to help them because they've been running away from some sort of danger for some time, lots of them. Though the police have not come out to release a statement or to say confirm this but they are credible sources saying that happened and we can see the video that we just played there. You've talked about you know complicity from within the military apparatus in the country and you're saying that Kuduna state is a terrain where a lot of soldiers like yourself you are an ex security official you were trained there. You know the terrain very well but somewhat argue that it's quite a wide and large terrain that conventional warfare tactics cannot address the situation you know just like you have in Zambeza forest where you have a wide forest terrain. You have something similar in Kuduna state which is very perfect for sort of sort of gorilla tactics wouldn't you say it's not the same ball game? Well thank you you know when you watch such video the traumatic effect on people that actually pass the road is different from yours. There are people that cannot leave without going through those roads that is how they get their delivery. Transporters, petty business transactions and all other kinds of traders that need to move goods from one point to the other. This traumatic situation prevails. Now it's not only the military you know complicity and conditioning is in all our agencies. Look at the abacari case. You know the amount of drugs that have been compromised between abacari and the NPA officers that were culpable. Do you know that these guys feed on drugs? Now look at the terrain that you are talking about. Human beings lived there. Now those communities that you are talking about patients were coming from that place to join the police, join the military, join the PSF and they are retired and they go back home. What is the government's plan? If you say it is too large a place. Don't you have the database of your ex-servicemen? Don't your ex-servicemen not taking pension? Can't you correlate their dominance of those environments into intelligence and appropriate attitudes to begin to look at ways to compromise their own practice? Don't you have people concerned like councilors, local government chairmen that are answerable to the federal republic of Nigeria? You see this issue you are looking at is from up to down. It is from the effects of our government. This complements this lackadaisical attitude you know and if you don't implement penalty you can never stop criminality. Everybody is being compromised. Now we have set of people that are going to the bush to go and have dialogue with criminals and coming out to tell the government that you are the ones that expect the NPA like that. We have demand that was just released now in the east. The elderly man, the priest, or a dike, or advocate, or something. Now he said that those guys said we don't have problem with you people. It is the Nigerian government. So if the government is being mentioned in all the interviews of bandits, terrorists, criminals, lawless groups, why will the government not address it? Now we are all looking at 2023. Everybody is sharing boundaries everywhere. We are forgetting that there are people that were kidnapped in Kaduna in the school near defense academy. There were people kidnapped in defense academy. There was a train blown off track and the people taking into activity killed them and some of them were released you know. Those ones that were released what did the government do to track some of their activities? What did the government do to take to release the others that are in activity? See we cannot continue plugging this issue. The government must wake up to its responsibility. All agencies must become professional and remove political influence from their decisions and their actions. That is the only way forward. North is precarious as it is also in the southeast with kidnappings, abductions, killings, beheadings recorded in recent time. No one has been arrested you know. Well we have some arrests that have been made but we have not seen any concrete arrests you know and even parading of gunmen you know and any revelations so far. No murder cases have been solved you know. We are still waiting for the unraveling of who killed and beheaded the lawmaker and the number as they do. We have some persons but 70 of them have been arrested. How far away is Nigeria from being a failed state? Well I've heard that argument and that discussion. Now if someone says there is difference from a failed state and a weak state you know so for me I believe that the breakdown of law and order is when you are beginning to say you have a failed state. The inactivity of the security agencies not because they cannot attack criminals but because they cannot even dress up to go to work. That is the time you begin to look at this that you have a failed state. Here you will have flags of different groups posted in different parts of the country holding ground and claiming territory within the territory and territory of this country. That's the time that you begin to see that you have a failed state. But for now I think it is an abuse of office. So many of us are in office that we don't know the relevant those and we don't carry out professional ethics. In the police there are ethics in the military there are ethics even for promotion for deployment. Do you know that some soldiers are in front line for three years four years five years. What are you doing there they become criminal with the people you know they start with two business with the people. Do you know that some police officers they are not promoted and they are still allowed they are disgruntled and they are still allowed to carry arms. Nobody does psychological review for our armed men. Do you know that none of the police or military in all the training institutions I have not seen and they are asking that they do drug tests. Do you know that there is no review of financial transactions if there was how come Abatieri could amass all those properties and all those monies they were transacting with. So there are no review how come military officer would have put an amount in his account and be withdrawing bondage of money and moving them around. So there are no financial tracking everything is just a comatose. All we hear about is when we reject and when we restructure the security architecture that is a fallacy. All right what stands in the way of the authorities federal government declaring a total lockdown in Kanduna state. Our state of emergency like had been declared in the time of Lucia Gobasangio in Platu state something similar in Kanduna state a total lockdown and a sort of a surge you know a military operation to to rid the state of these criminals. I mean remember in the United in Iraq in 2007 America had what we call a surge where they deployed 20,000 more troops to Iraq and they focused on Baghdad you know in the beach to secure Baghdad and a special military operation. What stops the federal government from doing something like that? Locking the entire Kanduna state down and then deploying the full weight of the military there in an operation that may last weeks or months to try and rid the state of the criminals. Well for Kanduna state you will understand that there are lines according to some people they say there are lines that you should not cross. The ethnicity is a challenge once you are a house or full army there is a design that you cannot be pushed you know because you are in your terrain then there is the religion the religion itself has now seen abuse because these same elements of criminality they go into mosques they go into into the animal scholars the heads of the community that are also mosques and they adopt them they rape their women you know so can you remember the children that were kidnapped from schools you know so you begin to see that the compromises are all these lines that people was took there to agree for an outside professional assessment to review criminality you know so if you are from this tribe and you begin to do something and you say I am this grown kid they will look for someone like who means to come and start talking to you why this is going to be this going to people in the Niger desert they were complaining of abuse of resources but a violation of the sanctity of their area water land you know and if you see when all of that came into the MNBC the same people that were from that were asked to help the MNBC to waste the money from Nigerians and naturally criminal but once it drops towards ethnicity or religion it becomes a problem to handle and that compromise is what is destroying the opportunity to lift these things in the board in Kaduna. Dr Ohidiave what has happened to the nation's intelligence apparatus we've not seen any names as far as the banditry or terrorism as it's been defined by court is concerned we've not seen any profiles we've heard of Ansaru which is a new one in addition to Boko Haram and ISWAP but we're not getting information we're not getting seen briefings of what is going on with the nation's security and intelligence apparatus I'm sure you're very well aware of the workings of that that sector well if you look at the apparatus that's why I always say that there's no need to restructure or reject you know we are the TSS we are the NSF to oversee we are the ICT we are the EFCT we are the police in the police you are the SFU you are the special crime botards you are the armed combat unit even the SAS that was just restructured now that didn't see the light of day you know we have the customs immigration and the LA both are the apparatus that we have they are existing you know and I tell you if you remember you can go online and check there are key officers of all of these apparatus that have retired that keep saying that intelligence is robust it is not actionable intelligence gardening is robust we know if I tell you today all our security agencies in Nigeria they know the names of those people involved in the Kaduna disease they know the names of terrorists our our head of judiciary who said he has the names of sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria till death the names are in their in their wardrobes now we know if you listen to some of the heads of agencies that have retired some generals even this other man that was CBN commander and so director before that contested for presidency that died all of them that has come out there are generals who that has come out our intelligence in Nigeria is robust we know as I sit with you the the time you will see a kidnap if you want it to be resolved today you will hear that I ROT had picked up everybody so yes but what happens is the judicial process is to apply penalty what happens is to get the government will power so if they get an internal investigation system to root out all the opportunities for the irrelevant vulnerability those are the area we are talented we know that we have intelligence it is not actionable really really worrying times at this point is there a need because this has also been part of the conversation some some have suggested that there may be a need at this point to engage the help of the international community both countries and governments and also the private security contractors in and nipping this in the but is this something that that you think should be explored yes yes mercenaries and even even foreign foreign armies like the french did in mali in you know against the to our agreement let me give you a secret plan did you just hear a report recently that in couple collaborators with our internal services system and two people at the same time on um cyber crime one in a dosage and one in the east that news is bad right now now there was a time that an american was kidnapped you remember that they came into the area picked up your person neutralized all the trash and took him away think it's in the same time that we are now you remember that there are transactions of horse coffee that we have that we have put together look the international community they collaborate with nigeria what happens if there is exchange of interest the americans cannot reveal there was a man this is a video of a of a mercenary that said they wanted to come in and neutralize both around in those days of the growth and development and expansion of terrorism is that the government said no there's a video like that a white man being without you see we cannot have mercenaries in nigeria it's not going to work the mercenaries will be neutralized in nigeria that you see they are more intelligent than 80 percent of the human beings in this world nigeria that you see we have private security companies that can take up that contract and their personnel of especially made up of ex-servicemen that are within the age bracket of combat readiness and dissolve all the threats that are within a state this empowered by the government we have the same kind of people that can form vigilante the human hunters that are faring up with soldiers that you hear civilian joint and they neutralize a lot of criminal elements we then gone we don't need mercenaries we don't need external influence or influence we can do it let the government take their hands off the agencies let political interests be withdrawn from the agencies let the agency personnel see the results of compromise by the penalties that would be issued out decrease that would be put on court and all the extra speed that would be assigned to such cases and you see people penalized short or hand or electrocuted then you will take the take this all right um 2023 general elections are around the corner and one of the reasons the current president was the favorite of some people was because of his credential as a former general and some of his records in his time as a service man his famous speech on his inauguration day is you know ordering the command and control structure to relocate to the northern part of the country and all that um well he may go down in history as a general who couldn't secure his country but uh looking ahead if nothing changes before Buhari leaves what should Nigerians be looking at um when deciding who to vote for in the 2023 presidential elections as far as the security situation in the country is concerned what kind of person should they look out for well um Nigerians should leave the online online run thing they should leave WhatsApp groups they should leave their Facebook Instagram Twitter where they make a lot of noise and find their way to the registration center I have my privacy everybody should have their privacy nobody should vote on party line if you vote on party line when the party's over and the DJ put on you will be lonely everybody must have their period because vote for someone that has the prerequisite to put us on a trajectory that we begin to articulate a progress where we begin to look at all our vulnerabilities and assign solutions I have the person I'm going to vote for I'm not a member of any party I'm not a delegate but I assure you that I'm voting for an intellectual a man that is designed in his brain his body is fit his mind is fit and he has the followership of the youth who are saying that if they make this opportunity they are going to suffer a lot all right all right I'm I'm Ambassador Dr Roy Ohidia is a military veteran security consultant and analyst thank you very much for your time it's been a pleasure having you join us thank you very much thank you interesting times for the country and you know lots of people having a plan B that what's the plan B is just to exit the country to relocate to go abroad and will everyone you know travel out we have a decision to make in 2023 and the fate of the country hangs in the balance and rests on what Nigerians decide in 2023 the work starts now we don't have to wait till 2023 the work starts now my name is Kofi Bartels and that's the size of a package on the breakfast and don't forget you can follow uh plus tv africa on facebook instagram and twitter simply search for plus tv africa on facebook on youtube we are plus tv africa if you'd like to watch a live stream on youtube you can visit plus tv africa lifestyle from all of us here at plus tv africa studios in victoria allen leagas thanks for joining us return tomorrow up next is the news at nine