By Christian Akpunonu
Recently the National Security Council held a crucial security meeting to brainstorm on how to tackle the fast deteriorating precarious security situation in the Nigeria.The Constitution of the Nigerian National Security Council is drawn mainly from the service chiefs of all the armed forces. Unfortunately,the current President Muhammadu Buhari, PMB led Federal Government of Nigeria,FGN did not appoint any military personnel of the Southeast extraction as any of the service chiefs.The entire members of the present service chiefs are constituted mainly by the Northern personnel of the Fulani extraction in the majority. Although there are relatively few of them from Southern Region, especially the Southwest and South south,but none from the southeast .The implication of this security architecture is that major vital security decisions will be reached without any input from the southeast.And any such Security decisions and crucial policy statement made from such meetings is definitely binding on the entire Nation, southeast inclusive.This is acne of the brazen partiality carried out recently and the undeniable marginalisation of the southeast of Nigeria .It is stating the obvious that the lopsided appointments to political offices by Buhari administration is one of such consciously wrenched deliberate impunities that negates the tenets of the Federal character like never before in the political history of Nigeria. This one balls up surely landed us where we are today .There is hunger,strife, agitation, rebellion, rejection and dejection like never before in the country.There is breakdown of law and order as if in the wartimes. The upsurge in the tides of violent criminality has taken such a worrisome dimension as to become endemic .And the insecurity of lives and property is in its pandemic stage. And apprehension is growing up so fast that nobody is certain that the resolution is in sight .It’s been all through , gloom and despondency from 2011 up till today. No single day passes by without the bad news of bloodshed.In fact,blood is flowing like streams of water from various nooks and crannies of the country. And whereas there is no officially declared war, the drum beats and rumours of war is resounding with unpleasant cacophony. There is truly a conflagration of cataclysm. The political climate is turbo-charged with very unpalatable tidings of unbearable and incredible oddities. The sheer complacency of the Presidency and the taciturnity of the Nigerian National Assembly (NASS) is not only questionable and dumbfounding but very suspicious. The country has derailed completely and is still doing so .One wonders how we arrived where we are at the moment .We are really at the crossroads. The Clarion calls by the former President Goodluck Jonathan is not only pertinent but quite germaine .There is a need for unfettered National dialogue–real negotiation,round table talk .We need to get together and discuss the way forward. Anything to the contrary is nothing but sheer foolhardiness to play to gallery.The boiling tension is indeed overstaying the resilience of the tolerant common Nigerians.The heavy military presence in our streets especially in the Southeast regions that was hitherto reputed for being very peaceful and progressive is inexplainable and despicable,as well . There is nothing anymore to show that there is peace in the country christened Nigeria.Things have really fallen apart and the center cannot hold. Almost everething has gone awry. Unequivocally,the re-negotiation of the Nigerian unity is ripe. Afterall, anything that is a product of negotiation is equally negotiable .Our National unity is a clear product of negotiations, perhaps done on win-win basis and collaboratively ,traced back to the point of the Amalgamation of the Northern Protectorate and the southern Protectorate in 1914 by the British colonial Lord Lugard .It needs to be reviewed .So, whoever says or thinks that the vitiated National Unity is not negotiable is simply day dreaming .Such imagination is nothing but a wishful thinking and its continuous indulgence is wallowing in abject delirium .The consequences of such disposition is partly the present crass disillusionment everywhere .Where are we heading to? What is the solution to this ugly situation?The heavy military presence in the streets of southeast, particularly the Imo State and its environs is a great embarrassment .it is an indication of deliberate intimidating segregation by the PMB led FGN. It is quite unfair, because, such a thing cannot happen in the North.Even in the most volatile part of the Northeast– even in the ‘fable storyline ‘of the mysterious Sambisa forest,the fireworks and firepower deployed there is not displayed as it’s being done recently in the streets of Orlu and Owerri Imo State.There was never a time it was told that combatant soldiers were deployed to the streets of Maiduguri and Bornu State shooting sporadically and un- strategically ,killing thousands of innocent people .There is palpable fear about sort of the awkward security programs meted out to the Southeast regions currently.The activistic fear being that there is sinister agenda, which many suspect to be genocidal .The Southeast probably as apparently is under a siege.This is curious .It is not acceptable to any well meaning person for any government at the center to dissipate such arrogant divisiveness driven by deaf impunity.The whole scenario is anarchical, lawless and unconstitutional .It calls for worry.
