Thirteen years after the restoration of elected civilian government in Nigeria,
serious existential challenges persist at the federal, state and local levels. These
include persisting low public confidence in the capability of the electoral system
to produce truly elected political leaders at various levels. Implementation of
economic reform programmes that have neither improved public services nor
produced jobs for thousands of young people graduating every year from higher
institutions. Pervasive corruption, which has reduced government’s annual
budgetary pronouncements and development targets to hollow rituals scuffed
at by a cynical public. Above all, an alarming spate of armed violence and
terrorism over widening space and territories and apparent inability of the
security forces to restore law and order, bring the perpetrators to justice and
reassure a traumatised citizenry.
The result is that in spite of Nigeria’s impressive macroeconomic growth and
stability (thanks to oil income), the country still ranks very low on major
global and even sub-Saharan African governance indicators such as infant
mortality, maternal mortality, quantity/quality of education, job creation,
poverty eradication, security of life and property; and high on corruption profile
and cost of doing Business (Chukwuma, 2011). Of all the challenges
confronting Nigeria, it is arguable that security challenge is the most acute.
From Maiduguri and Bauchi in Northeast to Jos in North-central and down to
Aba in Southeast, Nigerians are at a loss about the inability of security
authorisers and providers in the country to arrest the increasing drift to a state
of lawlessness where almost anybody can get away with the most heinous of
violent crimes as long as it involves mass number of victims.
An explanation of why this state of affairs has festered for so long in Nigeria
requires an understanding of its linkage with poor political governance. In
spite of the efforts of the current leadership of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) under Attahiru Jega, which in some ways have
brought a modicum of credibility to the electoral process, the truth is that the
votes have not really counted in the emergence of political leaders in Nigeria.
In deed, elections have more or less become an organized crime in various
parts of the country. In this criminal enterprise, politicians go into electioneering
contests with a fixation not on service but on capturing state power and access
to public resources meant for overall development of the people for personal
gains.
While no region or state in Nigeria is immune from the above grim picture,
political and security governance in the southeast has continued to be a source
of major concern to many stakeholders in the region. It is indeed an irony of
history that a region with the most advanced traditional features of democracy,
accountable and transparent governance system exemplified in its amala
community governance system has today become a bastion of criminal
autocracy, opaque and imperial governance style. Statistics from the 2010
edition of the annual National Crime and Safety Survey (NCSS) conducted
by the CLEEN Foundation indicate that Ebonyi, Abia and Imo States have
highest levels of kidnapping in Nigeria (CLEEN Foundation, 2010). Similarly,
in the 2006 edition of the survey Abia State ranked first in armed robbery
(Alemika and Chukwuma, 2007). Between 2009 and 2010, there was hardly a
day that passed without cases of violent robbery and kidnapping reported in
the area. The villages are no exception as there is increasingly no statistically
significant difference between the levels of crime (especially armed robbery
and kidnapping) recorded in the cities and those in the villages (Chukwuma,
2009). For the indigenes, going home has become an ordeal and preparations
for it require the kind of security arrangements you would expect in war torn
places.
Consequently, public and private enterprises that operated in the region and
provided jobs to the youths in the past are closing down in droves and thus
complicating youth unemployment. While private businesses are leaving
because of security situation and poor physical infrastructure, their public
counterpart are shutting down mainly as a result of mismanagement, corruption
and poor corporate governance among other malfeasance. To compound
situation, the Federal Government of Nigeria, since the end of the civil war
in 1970 has not been fair to the southeast in rebuilding its infrastructure and
services destroyed during the war, which would have enabled the region to
rebuild its economy and provide jobs for its army of young people. The
government has consistently short-changed the region in the citing of major
public works programme such as construction of power stations, expansion
of road networks, water and irrigation projects and other social investments
that would have contributed in turning the economy around.
Furthermore, law enforcement agents posted to the region have continued to
conduct themselves in manners that suggest that they are an occupation force
preying on the people rather than protecting them. Prior to the emergence of
Mohammed Abubakar as the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force in
January 2012 and his subsequent banning of police checkpoints/road blocks,
you could hardly drive for more than one kilometre on any major road in the
region without being stopped by yet another roadblock/checkpoints mounted
by police officers to extort the people in the name of fighting armed robbery
and kidnapping.
Therefore, responding to governance and security challenges confronting
southeast Nigeria require concerted efforts by a multitude of stakeholders in
government, business and civil society and interventions at several points
intersecting political, economic and security governance. Taking up the
challenge, the Southeast regional office of the CLEEN Foundation, facilitated
a stakeholders meeting in Owerri in June 2011 to enable participants from
diverse backgrounds and callings encompassing business, academia, human
rights advocacy, religious organizations, legal practitioners, media, politicians
and other professional groups, to discuss and articulate organizational and
programmatic responses to governance challenges facing the region as well as
fashioning out ways of broadening the dialogue with other groups within and
beyond the region. Among the resolutions of the meeting, which included
establishment of the South-East Forum (SEF) a nonpartisan platform with a
mission to promote democracy, good governance, development and security
in the southeast, was a mandate to the CLEEN Foundation to conduct an
action research on security and governance challenges in the southeast with a
view to establishing an empirical basis for advocacy on the issues as well as a
baseline against which progress of intervention programmes can be measured.