Beyond The Taraba Murder Of The Three Cops

Inspector Mark Ediale, Sergeant Usman Danzumi, and Sergeant Dahiru Musa were the three police officers of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) gruesomely murdered in Ibi Taraba state during the covert operation. The IRT had arrested and was transporting the suspected kidnap kingpin to the Command Headquarters in Jalingo when the attack happened. The statement of tribute released yesterday by the Force PRO Frank Mba, had described the deceased as some of the finest breed in the service of the Nigerian Police.

My heart bleeds as I write this, just as it has been to since the news of the deaths of these three officers. Personally it heartraking and something I could not so readily come to terms with that security agents were gunned consciously, though arguably, in the course of a national assignment by members of sister security agency. Indeed it's, beyond baffling, devastating.

So sad and unfortunate that it has happened, I would force myself not to dwell on this demotivating emotional incident but rather to look at situations that could prevent recurrence and to a larger and more important aspect bring to a reasonable halt the cases of security-corrobated criminality, which has continued to fan the embers of crime and discrediting the genuine efforts of our security personnel to significantly rout out this menace.

The purpose of this write-up is that we must look beyond their regrettable deaths but through same remote unravel what has always been the obvious trend that similarly has remained shrouded in perceived mystery. The discerning majority of the Nigerian populace do not know whether the government is not aware or playing aloof of the daily conspiracies going on and loudly reverberated by victims on how these evils are facilitated by some bad eggs in the security network, where criminal elements are shielded, supported, given intelligence and reinforcement on their nefarious escapades.

I do not seek to point fingers, but very critically to call for action, one defined by concerted approach towards engendering a sense of total security, an appreciation that draws from and buoyed by the trust on those we hope and believe, and who have been saddled constitutionally with the responsibility to protect and defend us. The truth of the matter is that as the situation is now currently, this highly needed trust element that should ordinarily and very easily stir a sense of comfort and nonapprehension at the closeness of security personnel is very muh pathetically not handy.

For a  commuter, travelling along the road, especially those reputed for notoriety, the fears that this occasioned is even exasperated at the onward sight of uninformed men as against that sense of serenity and relaxation that ought to have so readily come. There could be two reasons for this; disconcerting, albeit, as both may be, the later leaves much an imprint of disappointment and gall. The one concern for fear is the creation of a false impression of security personnel by criminal elements in disguised uniforms, which has been recurrent, the other is the appalling degeneration of our security men to be used as and acting as instruments of these criminals and their trade.

The government which is the central coordinating master of the security agencies must find a way and assert the will to ensure there's synergy between the various arms of security architecture even as each is defined by its circumference and rules of engagement. Whether it be the Army, Navy, Airforce, Police, Civil defence corps or the Road safety corps, must realise that very primarily and most sacrosanct that their duty and obligation as security agencies of government is to defend, secure and ensure the peaceful coexistence of of the Nigerian space and its citizens. But secondly and also very salient is that, because of their different codes of formations, they are to operate separately in the unified primary mandate. This fact must not be lost in them.

Though the above could be quite not easy to clearly comprehend owing to the ambiguity of the separateness of roles in ensuring what's seen as a singular mandate, it is however pertinent that each sector knows, understand and work within its limits or, as the case seems to be, forced to so do if they have been found to be wanting in this. This failure critically is what an angle of the narrative of the unfortunate police murder tried to highlight.

It is enough to wail over the continuous rivalry between agencies of government, especially when they ought to work in synergy to perform their selfsame mandate of security and peace. Indeed, it makes no appreciable sense to fume and wail over such incidents just to be presented with another one to so repeat the emotional tirades. All hands must be on deck to ensure that this event will be the last of such careless rivalry, and unpatriotic posturing (thanks to the wider attention it received) we would hear. 

And this time, it must go beyond just the proverbial 'hands been on deck' to put paid to the conspiracy that has kept us hostage in what could be described as "security-bolstered" siege. The government must pull the first step of this motion by adequately prosecuting anyone found culpable in this murderous conspiracy.