Nigeria Content Online

Many hearts sank or missed a beat when news broke that thirteen
containers full of sophisticated weapons – rocket launchers, grenades, mortar
bombs, machine guns, and other weapons – had been intercepted at the AP Moeller
terminal in the Apapa Port in Lagos after they had lain there for over three
months. It seemed that the threat of electoral violence might be being made
real.

Yet, it hardly seemed credible that even the short-sighted
amongst our politicians could be so unthinking. After all, they struggle for
electoral ‘victories’ in the expectation that there will still be a state for
them plunder in the genteel manner that they have perfected. And although in
one of my early columns for Section 39 (Marching As To War) I expressed fears
that politicians, seeing the reward that violence and election rigging yielded
in 2007 when Maurice Iwu’s INEC abandoned its “Zero-tolerance for Violence”
policy, might be preparing for the next round of general elections as though
for war, the kind of all-out destructive conflict in which the intercepted
weapons might be used appeared incompatible with the self-interest of Nigeria’s
ruling classes.

So, the suggestion that the weapons were destined for other
conflicts seemed to confirm that nobody was aiming to destroy the country in
their attempt to rule it.

The CNN report relaying news of the discovery emphasized how
porous Nigeria’s borders are. We certainly can’t deny that our borders are
porous, but we can understand the magnitude of our problems when we consider that
the home country of the CNN’s which was airing this criticism, the United
States of America, has not been able to seal its own borders against heroin and
cocaine.

Since those drugs come from outside, the normal laws of supply
and demand ought to result in rocketing ‘street’ prices for these drugs if the
noose is really being tightened around all such illicit commerce – not least
because the US is also on the alert to intercept any materials with which
terorrists might seek to threaten it – but in fact the only reports are of the
falling price of drugs, and of Europe and America being deluged with Afghan
heroin and with cocaine from South America.

As if to underline the difficulty, a well engineered and
ventilated tunnel, which even had a rail track for ease of bulk transport, was
recently discovered under the border between the US and Mexico! Tunnels also
riddle the borders of Gaza, for which the Apapa containers were apparently
destined, and despite the awe and veneration with which Nigerian rulers of every
stripe and creed regard the Israeli security services, weapons still enter the
beseiged strip.

When gold rusts, what will iron do? The inability of rich and/or
efficient nations to secure their own borders against drugs and weapons is not
an excuse for us to throw up our hands, even though we barely have a first line
of defence, let alone the second, third and fourth lines available to other
countries. Nor, considering that we have enough attacks showing that large
quantities of weapons are already being used against Nigerians, should we feel
any relief that this particular Apapa cache was intended for a foreign
conflict.

After all, there is no basis for assuming that desperate
politicians have abandoned the idea of arming for the coming elections, while other
miscreants who want mayhem in the country are growing bolder and appear to have
decided that they can live with the blood of innocent victims of their
terrorist attacks on their hands.

Instead, our government needs to do a great deal more than has
been done to date, to bring Nigerians onside in the business of providing for
our collective national security, and of course, to make it clear that no
privately owned jetties or terminals can be off limits to the federal
government’s own security agencies, and that those security agencies will act
with complete impartiality and political neutrality in the business of keeping
dangerous weapons out of the country and maintaining security.

Fortunately, the investigation into the Abuja Jubilee car bombs
– which was in danger of degenerating into a political football – now seems to
be back on track. But in this context the careless statements that have been
coming out of Abia State give more than a little cause for concern. The
government there has been preening itself that recent activity by the security
forces to curtail kidnappers is one of the fruits of the decision by Governor
Theodore Orji to join the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

One waited (in vain) for some disclaimer, but it would probably
be best to ascribe the lack of reaction by either the Presidency or the Nigeria
Police Force to these unfortunate boasts, to their not having heard the claims
or their giving the traditional answer to foolishness – silence. After all, the
implication was that the Federal Government of Nigeria had deliberately
neglected its obligation to provide security in every part of this country
because the citizens in one part had voted for an opposition party! That is not
and cannot be right.