The Cost of Insecurity

I received a self-explanatory text from a Manager who is on an Executive MBA programme on which I teach-“An interesting topic for your next article is the security situation in Nigeria-the husband of a judge in Enugu was kidnapped in Umuahia recently. Ransom is being demanded. Crime in Nigeria is becoming more complex and masterminded by more sophisticated and brilliant persons. Do the police have quality personnel to cope? I am thinking about the impact on business, investment and risk management, strategy…etc; Managers now need to consider these things. My brother-in-law is relocating his business from Port-Harcourt-the harassment of local miscreants makes his furniture business uncompetitive.”

Beyond the joy and pride I felt at having contributed to making a young Manager think in a sophisticated manner about the strategic implications of his business and operating environment, the importance of the issues raised in Cheta’s text induced me to change my plans to write some personal reflections this week. There must be something about getting into your forties and fifties that makes people think more about God, and birthdays are especially seasons of spiritual and personal reflection. My birthday was Sunday, (along with His Excellency, Governor Gbenga Daniel, one of my Advisors at RTC Strategy and Advisory, Ayodeji Odetunde and I’m told Pastor Ituah Ighodalo-happy birthday mates! And to Alhaji Aliko Dangote whose birthday is tomorrow-since my birthday is only four days earlier than his, perhaps one day I will have only N4million less than he currently has! Let somebody say Amen!!!)

Indeed I had almost concluded some reflections along those (personal and spiritual) lines, but perhaps I did not quite get the release I needed to make those reflections public. So this week we focus on insecurity and its debilitating impact on our economy. This issue is related to many others-crime, fraud and unethical business practices (“yahoo yahoo”, ‘419’, bribery and corruption etc), militancy of different hues all over the country-area boys in Lagos, OPC in most of Western Nigeria, MASSOB and Road Transport Associations in the East, Yandaba and Almajiri in the North, the virtual breakdown of law and order in the Niger-Delta, increasing spate of kidnapping not just in the Niger-Delta but also now in the South-East, armed robbery (‘one-chance’, okada operators, bank robbers, home robbers, church robbers! etc), thuggery, incessant mayhem by social miscreants, the epidemic proportions that unemployment and under-employment have reached all over the country, political assassinations, all amount almost to a state of nature in which life is brutish and short!

I saw the recent IMF Review of the Nigerian economy which highlighted power and transportation infrastructure as two main impediments to economic growth and development (as well as the risk of fiscal misalignment if we attempt to spend all the income accruing from extra-ordinarily high oil prices). I agree with that assessment. Our most significant economic challenge is power, and this column has stressed that point. Next must be the whole absence of modern transport infrastructure-inter-state rail lines for long distance transit of goods and persons, intra-state and municipal train and bus transit systems for metropolitan mass transit (the Lagos BRT Scheme is an admirable first step on the bus transit front), water way transport infrastructure to leverage our vast waterways, and improved aviation infrastructure to ensure that aeroplanes do not disappear in our airspace and weeks later we can’t find it!
But insecurity must now rank high on our list of economic priorities. Nigeria, for instance is forfeiting huge one-off oil revenues due to the crisis in the Niger-Delta. Of course we do not feel it because of the exceptionally high oil prices but what is wrong with achieving hundred percent of targeted production levels even if all we do is save the excess and improve our macroeconomic profile? Beyond oil production, the entire region has lost investment and jobs due to the anarchy that has prevailed in the region since 1999. The text above refers to one furniture company which is being forced to leave the region. Another Executive MBA graduate told me about the escalation in projected cost profile of a quick service restaurant franchise which forced the franchise located in Rivers State to close down.

The incidence of armed robbery has attained epidemic proportions. Every week, in different parts of the country-rural, urban or semi-urban, violent bank robberies are staged. Usually every attack results in three or four deaths. Bishop Oyedepo’s church in Otta was attacked by robbers who shot several people dead in the process. Every week you learn of one new person who survived (or did not survive) an armed robbery attack-on the streets, while they are in a supermarket or fast food restaurant, or bank, or even in their homes. Banks now have to install expensive security doors with metal detectors, and have to move cash with armoured vehicles, thus increasing banks’ operating expenses (including insurance premiums) and reducing the possibility that interest rates will go down anytime soon.

Kidnappings for ransom which started in the Niger-Delta have now spread to the South-East. Let’s pray that its westward journey does not continue to Lagos and the rest of the West. Sheer lawlessness perpetrated by all sorts of militant groups, transport unions, feuding landowning or chieftaincy families or ‘area boys’ often means that whole neighbourhoods are often shut down sometimes for several days while the combatants settle scores with guns, cutlasses, knives, bottles and cudgels. Businesses of course have to close down while the ‘war’ lasts and often have to pay protection fees to ensure the protection of their assets and personnel. While all these go on, the police disappear until there is a victor and vanquished or both sides are sufficiently bruised or battered to agree a temporary cease fire.

The capacity of the Police in its current form to combat crime and insecurity is clearly suspect. And this is not just about arms and ammunition, patrol vehicles or communication equipment. I think the really critical deficiency in the police is of intellectual capacity-to acquire the information and intelligence required to prevent crime; to investigate and detect crime after it occurs; to modernise their systems and processes and to adopt and implement scientific, forensic and technology-aided investigation and detection tools. There is a need for wholesale modernisation of the Nigeria Police. Anyone who has interacted with the Police cannot but feel shocked about the antiquated processes and forms they use, some obviously dating back to pre-independence Nigeria. But the root of the state of crime and insecurity is the prevailing social crisis-unemployment, poverty, corruption and mis-governance and the vacuum in values in which money is everything, and how it is obtained is irrelevant.
Agbaje is Senior Consultant/CEO of Resources and Trust Company (RTC) a Strategy, Consultancy and Business Advisory Firm. RTC POLICY is the policy, government and political consultancy division of RTC.