Virtually daily, the mass media is awash with stories of scary, heart- rending, yet true-life tales of how not a few innocent citizens and security personnel are being mowed down by armed gunmen, who are currently having a field day.

Agreed, that the reasons vary-from terrorism, through banditry, armed robbery to kidnapping and politically motivated cruelty – but the obvious scarce regards for the sanctity of human life, specifically in Nigeria contradicts Section 14 Subsection (2) (b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

That expressly states that one of the primary purposes of having a government in place is that of guaranteeing the security of lives and property. The other of course, is the provision of jobs and amenities for the people’s welfare.

Curiously, with billions of naira of the annual budgetary allocation voted for security, the wanton wasting of priceless and irreplaceable human life is a questionable feature of persisting poor governance in the land.

For instance, in 2021 the security budget was N455 billion, which rose to N559 billion and N838 billion in 2022 and 2023 respectively. For this year it stands at an astonishing figure of N1.647 trillion, equivalent to 5.7% of the entire budget.

Unfortunately, with the spate of killings in the land by the so called unknown gunmen there is obviously no value for the humongous sums so far allocated for battling the escalating insecurity in Nigeria.

A few instances of the recent related incidents would suffice. On November 13, gunmen attacked an army checkpoint early in the morning at Ekenobizi, a border community between Abia and Imo states in Umuopara, Umuahia South Local Government Area, killing two soldiers.

Roughly a week later the Benue State was in the news after gunmen shot dead a lawyer, Mike Ofikwu, in Otukpo town.

According to reports, the lawyer was ambushed by two armed men while waiting for his gate to be opened. Incidentally, on August 13, 2024 some concerned women, mostly elderly, protested halfbaked in the Akoko area of Ondo State to denounce the waves of chilling killings by another group of suspected herdsmen.

In fact, one of the victims by the name, Sunday Ayemi was hacked to death for daring to decry the trampling of his farm crops by the herdsmen’s cows.

Also of great concern is the low ratio of policemen to citizens, which is 1 : 650 instead of 1 : 450 as recommended by the United Nations

That harrowing incident has sent shock waves down the spines of other farmers, who have since left their primary source of livelihood in a land haunted by hunger.

Furthermore, on August 17, 2024 some gunmen raided a hotel in Gauraja community of Niger State, abducted the proprietor, his brother and the wife, the hotel manager and three guests.

The report was confirmed by the Commander of the vigilante, Sabo Abdullahi. And the following day, August 18 yet another set of unknown gunmen killed four policemen in Nkanu West LGA of Enugu State. The horrifying incident took place at the popular Four Corner Junction in Ozala on that fateful Sunday evening.

So, what do we make of the stormy waves of the recent killings of defenceless citizens in the country? Amongst the frictional forces bedevilling the security of lives and property in the country are the proliferation of arms and ammunition which this newspaper has highlighted for the government to act on, and decisively so.

Also of great concern is the low ratio of policemen to the citizens, which is 1: 650 instead of 1: 450 as recommended by the United Nations. With 370, 000 policemen Nigeria is currently in need of an additional 190,000 others to frontally tackle the persisting challenge of insecurity.

That is according to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Olukayode Egbetokun. But there is more to reducing the scourge of insecurity than adequate numbers of personnel.

Chief amongst the factors is having enough weaponry, backed by sustained training, especially with the requisite knowledge of modern information technology.

That brings to bear the importance of being proactive; to identify places of volatility, the sharing of sensitive security information, which is why some analysts are clamouring for state and local community policing. Yet, one other significant factor to frontally tackle is the culture of impunity.

That is more so when it comes to stepping on the big toes of the sponsors of terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and politically motivated killings across the country.

President Bola Tinubu should therefore muster the political will to see to its logical conclusion the steps taken so far in this definitive direction. Only when these crime fuelling factors are frontally challenged and brought to their knees, and get the unknown gunmen as well as their sponsors to face the full wrath of the law, can the citizens breathe the fresh air of security.

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