 Insecurity worsens as over a hundred people are killed across Nigeria last week. And in a turn of event, Zampara State Commissioner for Women and Children, Rabbi Ibrahim Shinkati, resigns from her office to join the cabinet of Govna Hup, who's a member as commissioner in emo state. For this, it's Plus Politics. I'm Mary-Anna Cough. At least 101 people were killed by non-state actors across Nigeria last week. The highest figure in over eight weeks, a review of the figure shows, an increase in about 200 percent when compared to the previous week when 32 people were killed or reportedly killed. Now out of 101 persons, a traditional ruler was killed in Kaduna State while 45 farmers were killed and many others injured in Nassarawa. Also at least 38 persons were killed in an attack by bandits in Kaduna State. At least one incident was recorded in each of the three geopolitical zones in the north, while none was recorded in zones in the south. The incidents were sourced mainly from news reports. Thus, unreported cases are not actually included. For joining us at this cost, this is Balazaka. He is a political analyst and of course a security analyst. We also are being joined by Aquanum Terence, a security analyst. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining us. I'm going to start with you, of course, Mr. Zaka, with this issue of insecurity. For the past week, even as we were, I think on Christmas Eve, we were still talking about recorded events of insecurity by non-stage actors. As we speak, a traditional ruler in the southeast, if I'm not mistaken, was captured. He was kidnapped and then, of course, his body was dumped in the city centre or the town square. And this is one amongst many that has happened between Christmas Eve and today. In fact, even before Christmas Eve. And what we wonder, even in the midst of governments saying that they're fighting insecurity, we're here and we're where we are today. Help us make sense of what's really going on in the country, in terms of insecurity. Well, when you speak about insecurity today, you're talking about an index that can destroy any country. It will destroy the country politically. It will destroy the country economically. It can destroy the country across demographics. So, insecurity is not a good index to be associated with any country. In the context of Nigeria, the causes of insecurity are economic. They are political. They are social. They are demographic. They are even secular. So it depends on which aspect you look at it. If you look at it from an economic aspect, you will know why there is serious insecurity. Because the economy is terribly bad. When you look at it from a political point of view, you can analyse it and see why the economy is in bad shape. Because there is no understanding or congruency from our leaders on how to lead us. When you look at it from even a demographic point of view, you will see it. We have so many youth that are jobless, regardless of whether they are educated or not. The educated ones went to school, graduated, came up with nothing to do. So they are now vulnerable tools for all kinds of bad things. Then they let educated ones that are artisans have nothing to do. When you also look at it from a sectarian point of view, you will also see the same thing. Because today there is no religious harmony. There is disagreement across religious divides. And you see religious leaders accusing themselves there is no trust. So it actually depends on which of these variables you analyse. But I am not surprised that Nigeria has become a melancholy country and a lacking stock. Not only within the continent of Africa, but across the global community. So it begs the question. I totally understand where you are coming from. Because you know the saying that an idle mind is the devil's workshop. But we have had successive governments. And as much as the Buhari administration is the government in power right now. And the box stocks with them. We have had successive governments who have come with ideas and promises on how to equip our young people. Thin the line of unemployment and underemployment. But we have not seen all of those promises being fulfilled. And this is 2021. We are almost at the end of 2021. Getting ready to go into a new year. And we are still dealing with these issues of insecurity. I remember when I spoke to the Sheikh Ahmad Gumi. He pointed to things that you have mentioned. Some of the major issues that have allowed these young men to take up arms. But this is a choice that these people have made. What is government's duty to make sure that these people don't continuously replicate themselves? Because we're still having to deal with these issues on the one hand. And of course the ugly truth which is we have a high level of unemployment and underemployment. It's also on the other hand. Does government not have its work cut out for it? As far as I'm concerned it is only the government and our political and economic leaders that will explain why we handed over the economic, political and social destiny of our country into their hands and they allowed things to decay to the level it had decayed through. It's only our political, economic leaders and social leaders that can explain that. But one thing I know is this. As we speak today Nigeria is supposed to be a country that is in democracy. And when you talk about democracy that means we have people in political governance. And those people in political governance are those that call the shots. And if they are there and we entrusted our economic, political and social destiny into their hands and things have decayed to this extent they are the only people that can explain. Because by the time we see this on the side fences and opens and try saying what we feel are the reasons they may think we are, we are disloyal citizens. While in real sense they are those who decided to paddle the ship or the rudder of the country towards the wrong direction. Because if you look at it the political models they are using are wrong. The economic models they are using are wrong. The social models they are using are wrong. And the natural outcome will be what we are seeing in the country in terms of insecurity, banditry, economic decay and social hostilities. Let me, let's talk strategy here. I remember earlier this year there was a lot of push and shove. People were asking that the President changes security chips. It took forever but that happened. We saw the head of the NSA talked off and they collect some places, no fly zones. And we've seen that happen over and over again. All of these strategies we cannot necessarily shoot them down, can we? Can we say authoritatively that these strategies have worked? And if it hasn't, what are the changes that need to be done for this to happen? Is there a collect cut, you know, one size fits all strategy to deal with this issue? Knowing also mainly that this is not necessarily a regular warfare, it's a guerrilla warfare of sorts. As far as I'm concerned, all the strategies have failed. If you look at it, the economic strategies have failed. The social strategies have failed. Even the religious strategies have failed. And anybody who said those strategies have not failed should come out and give us his or her reasons. And we have reached a stage today in the country where virtually everything we have been told gets contradicted. We are meant to understand that if we pass the petroleum industry bill into law, there will be investors. Are investors coming? The truth is they are not coming. We are told that we should also key into global warming concept of making sure we do not encourage, I mean, a deforestation. We were supposed to go to cooking gas. How much is a 12 kg cylinder of cooking gas today? We have been assured that, I mean, during the Yuletide season, you know... But the cooking gas issue is a worldwide issue. Even in the United Kingdom, as we speak, they are also facing 100% surprise in gas challenges. It is another lack of economic reasoning. I'm telling you this because I'm a practitioner in the industry. I'm a public affairs analyst but I'm an experienced petroleum engineer with more than 30 years experience. So I know what I'm talking about. When they promised you that they were going to give you modular refineries to give you petrol, did you see the petrol? If you were even fooled and modular refineries produce petrol, meanwhile in recent they don't produce petrol because they are not equipped with catalytic cracking units. I don't want to start itemizing the lies because I will be making no sense of my own country. I see where you're coming from but that's a whole different conversation on its own. Come back. Yeah, I'm saying that that's a whole different conversation on its own. You are totally right. So let's go back to still the insecurity. I mean the real insecurity also had to do with lack of planning by our leaders because when you look at it, just imagine the number of youth that are unemployed. Look at the illiterate community and the percentage in the entire country and what is happening today. By the time you look at all these parents have sent their children to school, spent all that they had. The children graduated came out nothing to do. There are some families you go to. You will see more than five graduates still relying on their old parents who are pensioners or slaves to survive. Look at the artisans. Look at those who are supposed to be in the villages, who are supposed to be farmers because of hostilities they cannot farm. Just imagine if one farmer can cultivate 10 ridges of harvest. But now you have millions of youths who are supposed to be farmers not there. Multiply that and imagine the millions of ridges of harvest that Nigeria has lost. And there is nothing happening in the cities. The cities are completely choked. With all kinds of ill, so what do you expect? The natural reaction is negativities and hostilities that will not be in the interests of the country. Now, like I said, we're almost wrapping up the year 2021. And in line with the strategic thinking, I beg your pardon, let's talk about information gathering which is very important when it comes to dealing with any form of insecurity. Intelligence is very key. How well do you think that our security agents have been using this in terms of, I mean, because at some point we heard stories of, oh, they do not know where these, for example, the bandits, where these bandits are. Well, we also see Sheikh Gumi always going to visit these bandits, giving them healthcare, giving them education in his own way. He's always talking for them. But then there seems not to be a connect. There is a disconnection of sorts. There are also security pundits who have also said that government is window-dressing a lot of these issues of insecurity and trying to paint their image in a good light as opposed to the realities on the ground. And of course, in terms of reporting, let's not also forget that the security outfits do not, we only follow the information that security outfits give us, knowing that the media in this country is not as equipped as they should be to be able to delve into those areas that are unsafe. So how do we put all of these together and get it right to be able to deal with this insecurity as we go into 2022? That is very simple. Let our leaders accept that they have been on the wrong economic trajectory, they have been on the wrong political trajectory, and they have been on the wrong social trajectory as far as leading this country is concerned. We see them as our parents. Parents make mistakes or they get certain things wrong. The first thing is to admit to your family that something is wrong or things are not going right. Then your children will reason with you, your siblings and everybody will reason with you to lead the country out of whatever malice, you know, or the family out of whatever malice she found herself in. So in our own case, the things are very simple. Certain things are not going right. Very simple, especially considering the body language of the government at the helm of affairs. Is it very easy for the average Nigerian politician to say, well, I have failed. I made to restrassurize or, well, we probably weren't about this the wrong way. There is no precedence, is there? So what's the thing that makes you or the assurance that these people will actually own up to it if we must ever get beyond this phase? No, no, no, no. When you own up, then people come together and cooperate with you. And that was why when I started, I said, politically, I would have not cooperated. I'm sorry, should we be using the word when or if? Because, again, I try to remind you, it's never happened. Will it ever happen? Looking at the body language, again, I say, of the government that is in power. They have been saying that they've done their best and maybe this seems to be a pass on the back for them because they seem to think that they're doing well or they're doing good so far. So will there ever be, if there be a time when they decide to own up, how soon do you see that happening? But a few months into the campaign season, then election year is just around the corner. Well, in the areas of doing fine, we have heard that they have ordered for more equipment. We have recently heard that they have, I mean, improved the remuneration of the police. You know, maybe there are other things that they have done that I'm not probably aware. You know, that's to be fair to them. So if there is a need for them to encourage our security forces, they should do that. If there are other ways of encouraging our youth so that we don't continue to experience brain drain, let them do that. But it is on record that many of our political leaders send their children abroad. Many of our political leaders do not patronize our hospitals. Many of our political leaders do not spend their holidays here. Many of our political leaders have high tests for foreign books. So if some of these concerns, whether they are rumors, if they are true, then they should have everything. But one thing about them is this. Our leaders will remain our leaders. I cannot go to Asia and ask for leaders to come and lead us. I will not pray that we should be recolonized. Definitely not. But for our leaders, we will continue to pray for them. But when we feel certain things are not right, we shall criticize them probably mildly, but in national interest. But keeping quiet will not be in their interest or in our interest or in the overall interest of the country. Okay. Finally, before I let you go, you keep talking about our political leaders. Yes, this addled with the responsibility of making sure that we're safe and we're protected. But we also do have leaders of thought. We have traditional leaders. We have religious leaders. These people have roles. They might not necessarily be the ones who have the pen to paper to make the laws or veto whatever it is. But they do have a role to play. They have tea parties with these so-called political leaders that we have. And so they do have a role one way or the other. Are they playing that role very well? Have they really been taking the voices and the yearnings of the people? To the table when they're having those tea parties and those strategic meetings, in quote. At far as I'm concerned, our traditional leaders have done their best. They have come now. They have come to use. They have come to war infactions and kept promising them that government was going to come to their aid or government was going to come to the rescue. And it got to a point where warring communities don't believe our leaders, traditional leaders again. Youths don't believe them again. Farmers don't believe them again. And that was why you saw how youths, warring factions and farmers now go to challenge our traditional rulers or leaders. Before now, after God, the next is traditional leaders because we respected our culture before even the coming of Islam or Christianity. But they too have been lied to by politicians and they relied on politicians to come and calm down now. And at the end, promises were not fulfilled. So based on what is happening today, honestly, I personally don't blame our traditional rulers or leaders. Even though there may be one or two among them, there may have romance with the adulterated political class. But majority of them have the promises based on what our leaders told them. And at the end of the day, nothing happened. And that's why you can see small, small children that are not up to grandchildren of traditional leaders have been the boldness to kidnap them and even kill some of them. Where those kinds of violence we inherited from our parents in those days, traditional leaders or rulers were small gods then. In fact, after God, we respected them even before political leaders. So to some extent it depends on who you talk to. But personally, if you put blame today, I can blame our traditional leaders not up to 5%. The remaining 95% is their reliance on the political and economic leaders that lie to them and they also came and talked to their subjects, thinking the political leaders were honest. Well, finally, I want to say thank you. Balazaka is a political analyst and is also a security affairs analyst. Thank you so much for speaking with us. We appreciate your thoughts. Thank you and God bless our country. Our leaders will continue to remain our leaders. God put them there. But as their children and followers, if we notice certain things are not going right, we shall still let them know or air out our concerns both in national interest. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Well, thank you all for staying with us. Coming up on PLOS Politics, a Zambia State Commissioner resigns to take up an appointment in United States. We'll talk about that after this break.