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Nigeria is on a tipping trajectory where the failure to protect and secure the human capital is fueling general insecurity across the country and the further decline of peace and stability.
Stakeholders who raised these concerns also worry that placing the security of the state and that of a few individuals above the protection of the generality of citizens is the perfect recipe for a failed state.
These were the issues on the front burner at the fifth National Summit on Mass Atrocities by Global Rights and Partners, with the theme, “A Standing Responsibility to Protect,” an event held to address the long-standing causes and effects of all the forms of mass atrocities witnessed in Nigeria.
The Executive Director of Global Rights, Abiodun Baiyewu, in her remarks, said it was time to question governance failures that have led to poor access to education, food insecurity, energy poverty, mineral-linked conflicts and the culture of impunity.
She warned that such deprivations in any society guarantee social unrest and worsen insecurity, which eventually results in mass atrocities against innocent citizens.
She said, ”Nigeria is at a point on our national trajectory where we must think very strongly about how our failure to protect human security is affecting the general state of insecurity in the country.
”The government must invest in human security, invest in those things that make humans feel secure in society, such as infrastructure, education, health. Invest in enabling people live decent lives and ensure food security.
”Farmers are unable to tend their fields, worsening the already critical food insecurity situation and parents fear sending their children to school due to rampant abductions.
”It is imperative that we re-examine the state of insecurity in Nigeria, its devastating impact on the lives of Nigerians, and weigh the government’s efforts to address the critical issues”.
“To understand how we got here and how we can find our way back to becoming prosperous where peace and justice reigns, we must examine the underpinning governance failures that have accelerated our decline.
A member of the Community of Practice Against Mass Atrocities, Ier Jonathan-Ichaver, on her part, tasked the government to investigate corrupt elements within the security forces and call attention to their responsibility to protect citizens first.
She said the posturing of some security agents and their leaders suggests they are more invested in protecting those in government who are supposed to be serving the Nigerian people rather than protecting the citizens.
”We have people within the security forces who mean well and want to do well but there are corrupt elements within the system, so the management and administration of our security agencies need to be investigated.
”Our security agencies need to do a lot more work in terms of using intelligence to protect citizens and their operatives, invest more in investigations so that Nigerian people can be safer.”
Meanwhile, Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission, Dr Tony Ojukwu, has warned that the amnesty programme of repentant insurgents has the potential of fuelling reprisals in the communities that are affected, except retributive justice is ensured.
He said the culture of forgiving and reintegrating known killers into homesteads where victims and, or their relatives still live without reconciliation could breed animosity and violence.
”Insurgency has devastated a lot of communities in the Northeast, we are looking at a situation where people who participated in the killing of others, destroyed farmlands, homes and livelihoods of others return to the communities forgiven and empowered by the government while victims are left in destitution. This kind of situation has the potential to fuel crises.
”We encourage law enforcement agents to return and occupy the space because there’s a need for constituted authority to return to those communities so that schools, police stations and courts can work to make sure that peace and reconciliation are truly restored to ward off future incidents of mass atrocities.
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