Insecurity In Nigeria: A Charge To The Media, Security Agencies
By Bakare Lukman
One of the biggest problems facing this Nigeria today is insecurity and our media houses and security agencies are also responsible for generating and adding to the continuous occurrence of this menace. They are the 'biggest terrorists' out there because of their inability to stop the security challenges facing our country. They refused to carry out their duties appropriately, thereby allowing the politicians, religion, and ethnics begot to turn the criminal activities going on in the country to something broad without any hope of overcoming it.
Hardly can you find investigative journalism anymore. Our media houses are now competing in who breaks the news first. Any crime in Borno, Yobe, etc. are now automatically Boko Haram. Any crime in Zamfara and it's environments are Bandits doing and any crime in Southwest is automatically the handwork of Herdsmen.
According to our media now, South-South/South East is now peaceful, because hardly you see them reporting any crime in those areas because there is no group that is currently trending to tag as the culprit.
Hardly will you see an exclusive story that takes journalists a year or more to investigate again. Whenever a crime occurs, we conclude our findings immediately on social media before the commencement of the real investigation and our media houses are now notorious in using fake stories trending on social media without even verifying the source it emanated from.
Recently, Senator Abbo's uncle was killed and some members of his family kidnapped and our biased media immediately reported the criminals as Gunmen. Samson Siasia's mother was kidnapped and our media tagged them with gunmen. But there are tagging every crime in Yoruba land to Fulani herdsmen.
Last month, we read it all over media the interception of strange military weapons in Adamawa, It was later reported that the strange military equipment was six Mine Resistant Military Vehicles and it was believed that the vehicles belong to the USA and were actually headed for the Republic of Niger. Why naming my Resistants Military Vehicles as strange military equipment by Media and our Security agencies? Why would the USA bring the vehicles to Nigeria without notification and escort by our own officers? And if the US duly notified the constituted authority while unnecessary drama from our Security agencies and our media houses?
The security agencies are practically doing nothing to stop this ugly trend because no successful arrest, prosecution, and no conviction has been made. Is there no intelligence unit to gather information? Criminals are gaining strength day by day because they know nothing will happen to them even if they get caught.
Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria, Newspaper Proprietors Association Of Nigeria, Nigeria Union of Journalist and other relevant organizations should regulate the activities of the media houses. They should partner with the National Assembly to make a new law that will prohibit airing and publishing of any news, article, etc without any tangible evidence or from a reliable source about National security.
It is time the government at all levels sit tight and take responsibilities. The first duty of any government is to guarantee the security of lives and property of its citizens. I don't expect the Service chiefs, IGP, Director, DSS, and other security chiefs to still remain in office despite their failure at all fronts.
President Buhari should as a matter of urgency relieved them of their duty and bring in the new faces with a clear mandate of finding lasting solutions to the security challenges facing the country. We must learn how to compensate for good work at the same time to punish failure.