Tackling Resurging Wave of Insecurity In Calabar

 In saner climes, apart from ensuring law and order, economic stability, and the availability of good social amenities, as well as enabling the environment to promote enterprise, one of the cardinal obligations of government is the security of lives and property of the citizenry.

   This underscores the poignant reasons why pragmatic administrations always devote time, energy, and huge resources to exploring the most viable measures capable of ushering in optimum results from tactics eventually deployed in securing the lives and property of the governed.

     While the President who doubles as the Commander-in-Chief of the nation's armed forces is tasked with this uphill task at the helm of a federal hierarchy, the state governor, often referred to as the Chief Security Officer, calls the shots within the boundaries of their domains.

    From a historical perspective, Cross River state has often been referred to as the most peaceful state in the federation. Thus, the sobriquet Come-and-leave-and-be- at-rest (Calabar). This enviable status was attributable to the low crime indices in the state stretching from the creeks of Bakassi to the hills of Obanliku, which was always the lowest among the comity of states in the federation.

   Such enviable statistics emanated from prime attention accorded the security sector in terms of logistics, motivations, competent manpower, and robust synergy among security apparatus in the state fostered by the peculiar interest demonstrated by the then administration towards their welfare and optimum performance on the line of duty.

     Apart from leveraging the rare presence of  the headquarters of 13 Brigade of the Nigerian Army, Eastern Naval Command, Zone 6 Headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force, and 202 Mobility Division of the Air Force, all based in Calabar, the blanket security network, buoyed up by Operation Mesa joint security outfit with a five  minute response 

time upon call within any part of the state was nothing short of a Midas touch that earned the ancient city of Calabar, the enviable appellation as the Ultimate Destination for Leisure and Business 

Unfortunately, the corrosive virus which crumbled virtually all developmental heights attained by the state courtesy of the tact,  acumen, and visionary crafts exhibited in governance by Donald and Imoke while in office as Governors did not spare the water right security architecture inherited by the next sensational dispensation which holds sway from May 2015 till May 2023.

To our utter dismay, the spate of kidnappings, armed robbery, bloody cult clashes, and wanton destruction of lives and property that characterized the tenure of the last administration in the state was unprecedented in all ramifications. 

      With the dawn of Season of Sweetness, we had expected that the reign of terror unleashed by miscreants, who enjoyed a field day under the Ayade administration, would have gone with the winds. But regrettably No!

Rather, the resurging wave of insecurity has assumed monstrous dimensions with kidnappers pouncing on their hapless targets with reckless abandon while government and security agencies remain aloof, a typical replica of a NatGeo Wild scene.

It is heart-rending and ridiculous that despite the avalanche of security outfits in the state, especially in the state capital, no kidnapping operation has ever been intercepted or averted except for the recent case at Esuk Utan attributable to communal efforts by the youths in the area.

Our Police formations are now more engrossed with mundane engagements ranging from debt recovery to extortions on our roads purely for pecuniary interest, while criminals operate without restrictions with blazing impunity.

The present administration needs to up its ante in terms of robust synergy with security outfits and demonstrate such with logistics assistance, motivations, and incentive packages to guarantee optimum performance.

We, again, consider it ridiculous that while neighboring states enacted and circulated anti-kidnapping legislation with a capital penalty for offenders to serve as a deterrent, the Cross River anti-kidnapping law assented to by former Governor Ben Ayade remains elusive with no copy found in the public domain. Of course, this speaks volumes of the complicity of state actors in the heinous crime.

The lackadaisical posturing of the government on the issue of kidnapping as amplified in the case of Prof. Ekanem Ephraim, abducted on July 13, 2023, is condemnable as such weak signals only succeed in giving impetus to perpetrators to step up their onslaughts.

Therefore, we urge the present government in Cross River state to evolve more stringent measures aimed at addressing the menacing elements that have opted to constitute a threat to our peace and security.

We suggest that henceforth, sensitive offices, with direct bearing on the security of our state, must be reserved only for retired security personnel with unblemished antecedents, not political jobbers.

We again suggest that a state security council comprising the head of security formations in the state, retired indigenes from the rank of Police AIGs, Army Colonel or its equivalent in the Navy, Air force, DSS as well as royal fathers should be inaugurated to map out strategic innovative concepts to tackle the tidal wave of insecurity rattling our state.

The Season of Sweetness would remain a mirage and mere political slogan if the government continues to pay lip service to the security and sanctity of human lives as portrayed in the poor handling of the case of the lead neurologist at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Prof Ekanem Ephraim, whose whereabouts is still unknown, over five months after abduction.

Now is the auspicious time to also rejig Operation Akpakwu or come up with another functional State Security Outfit to fight the menace of insecurity in the state.