Governors Have What It Takes To Solve Insecurity In Their States – Ex-AIG

Fatai Owoseni served as Commissioner in Lagos and Benue States before retiring after 35 years of service. He currently serves as Special Adviser, Security to the governor of Oyo State, where he also oversees the Security Trust Fund. In this interview with CHIBUZO UKAIBE, he reflects on the rising security situation in the country and argues that governors can do much more as chief security officers to protect their states.

The recent attacks in Jos, Plateau State, are one too many. What do you think is responsible, and how can we curb such attacks?

I will start by paying condolences to the victims and the families of those people affected in the incident in Plateau State. And also, to the families of even our uniformed personnel who are being killed all over the country. Recently, we had a situation in Kaduna. There are recurring situations, suggesting that something is missing in whatever we are doing to secure our people. It is left for the people who are in the saddle now to identify what that thing is that is missing, what is the gap, and one of the areas that I will look at, which is critical, is the issue of the intelligence that we have been talking about.

We have been talking about technology, drones, and whatever, but technology without highly resourced boots on the ground? What do I mean by boots on the ground? The people that will do the actual work, technology alone cannot do it, and that is why we should be looking at how do we improve and get the trust of the people, because if we have the trust of the people, if they have confidence in our security system, they will also play a major role, and what is that major role? What we call human intelligence, because how do we explain that something happened last month, and everybody, including the people that I really know, will talk and say, ” Oh, yes, we sympathise. We are moving all the security heads to the Police. And just as you are saying that, another incident is happening in the same place. So, we must earn the people’s trust. We must build people’s confidence so they can share real-time intelligence with us. Technology alone cannot do it. Our terrain is different. The insecurity problem in Nigeria, if we want to solve it, is not about importing a solution. The solution is within us, and we must find a way to tap into it and optimise our own capacity, which I believe we have not.

Days after the incident, the president invited Governor Caleb Muftwang for consultation along with the security chiefs, and they said, “Okay, we have seen this before.” And it’s like it is falling into a pattern of reactive measures that we have seen before. Are you satisfied with that?

We are saying the same thing. Yes, the president doesn’t even have to invite the governor. I believe that every governor has a solution within his domain. It is not the president and the people of the different states who voted to be their leader in that state. Whoever is a governor in a state is the president in that state. Whoever is the chairman of the local government is the president of his local government, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. So, people must live up to their responsibility.

The issue of everybody running to Abuja; it is not the president who will design the security in the states for them. The local government chairmen, who are found in most parts of the country, are absent from their councils. They don’t stay within the community. It is only when they want people’s votes that you see them within their community. Most of them live in the state capital, if they do stay at all. Some of our governors also, sadly, how many days or how many weeks do they even spend in their states? They must sit down before the president calls any governor to say he wants to help them address their security problem. The governor must be able to sit down with the security apparatus in his domain and conduct a threat analysis. So, when he’s going to meet the president, he should tell the president, “Yes, I have noticed that this is a gap in my state, and this is the area you can help me with.” All the governors have what it takes to solve the problem within their domain. They should not wait for the president. They should not wait for the Chief of Army Staff, the Chief of Air Staff, or the institutional Police. They should optimise what they have on the ground. The traditional institutions are key partners.

We have been emphasising non-state actors. I have been emphasising it too. Every governor feels the solution to insecurity is the state police. No, it is not. It is one of the solutions. A whole society approach to securing our people is necessary. A whole society approach to policing. And, you know, getting the confidence of the people, getting the trust of the people, the governors should be on the ground. That is my own perspective.

A fact-finding committee is currently visiting the flash points in Jos, examining the root cause of the violence dating back to 2001, and you were still in service then. In your experience as a key member of the security apparatus in Nigeria, what are really the underlying drivers of insecurity in this plateau state, and why has it been so difficult to resolve?

Insincerity. That is it. It is not about a fact-finding mission or the Task Force. In most cases, when they put fact-finding structures in place, the people involved are strangers to the community. They don’t involve the community’s people. I would take Lagos as an example. I got to Lagos in 2015. What we met on the ground was that we had these banditry and robbery cases where one miscreant would go to banks, kill people, collect money, kill police officers, and all those things. We sat down. We looked at it. What can we do about it? Luckily for us at that time, the Nigerian police had a technical platform. We used it to our advantage. We optimised it. And that was why I said briefly that since that period that we tackled that robbery crisis up to the time I left Lagos in 2017 and up until today, how many times have you heard of all those serious bank robbery cases or in commercial places? The same thing with the issue of kidnapping. We addressed it squarely, and the Lagos government at the time was ready to support us with all the tools we needed.

We had a police hierarchy at the Force Headquarters ready to provide the technical support we needed. We had the people of Lagos who were ready to support all our activities. And we were able to put that to pass. That is why, when people talk about Lagos, they say the government is doing well. In Oyo State, we came here. We were able to share professional advice with the Governor here. We were also able to put structures in place. We are not saying we are perfect, but we have centred all our architecture on proactiveness and an integrated approach.

What integrated concept are we implementing in Oyo State? The handshake between state and non-state actors. We are not perfect. We do have breaches occasionally. So, every state must live up to its obligation. Each governor must live up to their obligations. It is not just about Lagos, Oyo State, or any other state. When you see some states providing massively for their security institutions and putting them together, you find that in some states, the governors are absent. It is only when things happen that they will be lamenting, oh, yes, we are just Chief Security Officers. No, it is unacceptable. They are accountable to the people, and they must solve the problem.

Some people believe that when elections are close and politics is around the corner, they up the ante on insecurity. Is that the correct scenario, and should that be happening at all?

That is an aberration. That is abnormality. It is an easy way of dodging these issues. Are we not ashamed to say that it is normal for things like this to happen during the election period? If we know that, why have we not found a solution? And who are these people who always come out when the election process is underway? Are they not our people? Do we not know them? So, it would be senseless to say that we have identified this as the pattern. And up till now, we have not been able to find a solution for the last two decades. Then it is a shame on all of us.

In recent times, there have been strong calls for state police. Given your background in law enforcement, do you believe Nigeria is really ready for state police? And if yes, what are the safeguards that should be necessary to make it effective?

I have mentioned that before. State police or state policing, these are things that people are mouthing. They are looking for an easy way out. That is not the only solution. I challenge everyone. In most police commands, if you check the personnel, close to 40 to 50 per cent of the people serving in that state, especially in the junior ranks, have been there for years. And if you’re talking about, oh, we want state police so that people will get familiarised with the community. Some DPOs probably started their careers as assistant superintendents of police and remained in that rank for 10 to 15 years. Would that not be enough to be familiar with their terrain?

I lived in Jos and attended the University of Jos. As in most of our communities, what should be our strength? We are allowing people who practice politics in a dirty way to use it as a tool to divide us. Between Jos North and the other part of Jos South, we have always believed that people can live happily in Jos. Jos used to be one of the places where most uniformed people who serve there want to retire. But this ethnicity, tribalism, senseless things crop up such that if you have a leader who is Birom, they will say it’s not acceptable to Jos North people. The Jos North people, predominantly Hausas and Fulanis, have lived there for years. They’ve intermarried with the Birom people. So, it is high time they build trust amongst themselves.

So, our diversity should be a strength. But we’ve allowed callous people to use this diversity to divide us because they benefit from it. They gain from it. So that is why you are seeing all these. People will be emphasising the issue of insecurity. People will be really emphasising the insecurity of Hausa bandits, Igbo criminals, and Yoruba criminals. No.

When it comes to security, there is nothing like colouration. Immediately, any leader starts to colourise the issue of security, which is the first sign that they will fail. You don’t colourate security issues. Bandits are bandits. Bandits have no colour. Bandits have no tribe. Criminals have no religion. They have no tribe. So, we have to take it frontally and start from that. Because immediately you start doing that, you have defeated yourself and whoever you even put on the ground to come and help you to do anything, that is when they will say, oh, it is because the commissioner of police is a Yoruba man. He has been posted to Plateau State. He is killing the Yoruba people. Then, if it is a Plateau man who is the commissioner of police, the Jos North people will say, ‘Oh, it’s a Birom man.’ He has been sent to come and kill Jos North’s people. They must wake up. I was Jos in 1985, 86 and for some part of my career. It is a place we are familiar with. They have destroyed Plateau State just like some other states in this country have