20/01/2025
S’East Insecurity: Separate secession from banditry, Nextier advises FG
The Federal Government has been advised to draw a clearer distinction between secessionist agitation for Biafra and banditry in the Southeast of the country as criminals as using the cover of such political activism to engage in kidnappings, extortion, robbery, human organ harvesting, among other crimes.
According to the latest report released by researchers at Nextier, a public policy think-tank, distinguishing these two groups by security agencies and acting appropriately will stem the tide of insecurity ravaging that part of the country.
“Secessionist agitation exists in the South East. But there are also gunmen attacks, banditry, group violence and kidnapping. Interestingly, one group could carry out this entire set of activities. While there are agitators who are committed to the course of exiting the country and working for it without engaging in criminal activities, there are criminal groups who find a convenient hiding within the secessionist struggle to engage in their activities.
“Most kidnapping incidents in the South East are carried out by bandits who cover the entire range of violent crimes, extort money from innocent citizens and have no commitment whatsoever to secession. To sum it all up, it's about profit from lucrative criminality”, explained the report authored by Dr. Ben Nwosu and Dr. Ndu Nwokolo.
Nwosu is an Associate Consultant at Nextier, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nigeria, and a Senior Lecturer at the Political Science Department; while Nwokolo is a Managing Partner at Nextier and an Honorary Fellow at the School of Government at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime, and Security at York University Canada.
Following their findings, the duo recommended that government at the federal and subnational levels should critically re-evaluate their engagement with insecurity in the South East by revisiting their understanding and classification of security challenges in the region to properly situate banditry, armed robbery, group violence and secession, because by focusing a lot of firepower on secession, enough attention is not given to banditry, and this enables it to thrive.
Besides, “government should embark on confidence-building measures and create safe spaces to support information gathering in order to engage more in intelligence-based operations.
“Reclassifying security operations as efforts to eliminate banditry and its associated kidnapping will eliminate any sentiment or sympathy that people may have for Biafra in the affected communities because they will now understand the bandits for what they are. Raising this consciousness is important to achieving the aim of community support.
“Communities should be encouraged to quietly release information on the local collaborators with bandits for arrests and furtherance of other security actions in the various camps.
“The dearth of modern equipment, arms, and protection for security forces should be addressed through enhanced procurement and the establishment of mechanisms for the proper audit of the security procurement budget.”
It can be recalled that insecurity worsened in the Southeast following the violent suppression of members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a secessionist group that later formed the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the eventual arrest and detention of IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, by federal security agencies while he is being prosecuted in court for alleged treason.
