Nigeria on path of Somalia, South Sudan, Mali, ex-editor insists

Former General Manager, Plateau Publishing Corporation, Mr. Jonathan Ishaku, yesterday said Nigeria had crossed the “threshold into the unenviable company of fragile states of Somalia, Mali and South Sudan portraying the nation as a failed state.”

The one-time Editor of the defunct Champion Newspapers, while speaking at the maiden colloquium of the state council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) with the theme, Herdsmen’s violence: The politics of security management in a fragile state, noted that the goings-on at Aso Villa and the National Assembly do not suggest that the politicians acknowledge that the nation faces an imminent calamity.

He submitted that the country’s development model, which tended to neglect human capital in favour of infrastructural renewal, was faulty and wrong-headed.

His words: “Apart from the wrong-headed direction of our economy and poor security governance, I fear that our security management is similarly wrong-headed. Certainly, things have gone dangerously terrible in our nation. And the evidence is piling up by the day.

“Our countryside has been turned into a veritable graveyard with body counts of the dead steadily rising everyday from attacks by armed herdsmen, highway robbers, kidnappers and sundry illicit non-state actors.

The question on the mind of all progressive citizens is: Where is the Nigerian state in all these?

Therefore, the evident failure of the Nigerian state to guarantee basic security and safety to its citizens qualifies it to be termed a fragile or, indeed, failed state.”

He continued: “In terms of insecurity alone, Nigeria today seethes with perhaps the worst levels of insecurity ever. In spite of assurances to the contrary, Boko Haram continues to demonstrate strength in the North East region.

Fulani herdsmen’s terrorism continues to spread throughout the country.

Kidnapping, which before was associated with a part of the country, is now nationwide with siege laid on all highways linking to Abuja, making daily transit to the federal capital from all directions a daily nightmare, etc.”