IN yet another tragic incident that highlights the dire security situation in the country, Dr. Rabi Nasir, a member of the Katsina State Executive Council, was murdered in his home in the Katsina metropolis on December 8. Dr. Nasir’s lifeless body was discovered the next day when one of his cooks knocked on his door without getting any response. After noticing signs of blood, the cook had raised the alarm, quickly alerting the slain commissioner’s police orderly who rushed into the room and discovered that his remains had been locked inside a toilet in his bedroom. The state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Sanusi Buba, confirmed the incident, saying that investigations had since commenced and that one person had been arrested in connection with the incident.

Killings have of course become rather routine across the country. The Speaker of the Kaduna State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon Yusuf Ibrahim Zailani, could not control emotions during the burial rites of his colleague, Hon. Rilwanu Aminu Gadagau, who was killed by bandits along the Zaria-Kaduna expressway this week. The murder of Dr. Nasir and others across the country certainly points to the level to which insecurity has exacerbated in the country, defying all known strategies. The killers do not even take into consideration the social and economic status of their victims: they kill for sport. Before his gruesome demise, Dr. Nasir had worked with the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). His murder certainly shows that criminals have upped their game. Their daredevilry on the country’s landscape speaks to the near impotence of the security apparatus in arresting the situation, and the extant case has further complicated the labyrinth of unresolved murders that have most assuredly exasperated and confounded the security agencies.

Failure of intelligence puts the compromised security architecture in the country under the spotlight. And the low morale among security personnel is yet another issue of intricate concern. We have, in previous comments, bemoaned the inadequacy of a unitary police force in handling the security of an ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse country like Nigeria. Unfortunately, President Muhammadu Buhari has opposed every effort to bring state police to fruition, drawing attention to, among others, the issues of funding. But as we have said time and again, state policing is only a part of the larger restructuring project where the allocation of resources would reflect the responsibilities constitutionally attached to each tier of government. Seen in that light, the argument about funding comes to grief. In any case, state governments have been funding the police since the return to civil rule in 1999, providing vehicular and other logistic support for them to deliver on their mandate. Besides, with the current level of enrollment into the force, it is clear that Nigeria is being criminally under-policed.

Although President Buhari has sent a powerful team to trouble spots in the North, that hasn’t prevented people like the governor of Sokoto State, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal, from desperately crying out for a declaration of emergency over the security situation. Terrorists have been relentless in their nefarious activities in Sokoto and other states and protests by aggrieved citizens are mounting. With the security situation in the country at the moment, help has to come in adequate measure, and very fast too. The number of lives already lost and still being lost is huge. Nigeria runs the risk of descending into a failed state as anarchy looms, and it has become clear that the current administration is bereft of ideas on how to rein in the pervasive security lapses all over the country. It must utilise the suggestions given by Nigerians. There must be an overhaul of the entire national security architecture which enabled the murder of Dr. Nasir and others. Needless to say, the killers must be brought to book.

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