In my view, it is about time we as a nation pivoted the apparently intractable crisis of insecurity that has obviously overwhelmed the military and government from the exclusive realm of politicians to a multi prong, multi sectoral and departmental effort involving both military and non military expertise.
The military has already co-opted vigilante groups, such as the ‘Civilian JTF’ in the North, Amotekun in the South-West and Ebubeagu in the South-East, into its operations. But it appears to me as if they are just being used for guard jobs and perhaps inadvertently as canon fodders , particularly around the numerous IDP camps in the north. They have also suffered significant number of fatalities, which may be unsustainable for a longer period .
Another group that has been co-opted by the military are hunters. They too have basically served as compass for the military in the forests where they are more at home.
l have tried to give context to the effort that the military has made in expanding the execution of the war against terrorism beyond its horizon, in order to prove that it recognises that it has been overwhelmed by the dynamic shapes and forms in which the war on terrorism has evolved over the past decade. Again, the aim is to validate the need to expand the scope of government agencies and departments that are engaged in the war, which has turned out to be the greatest threat to the continued corporate existence of our country, from solely a public sector function into a public/private sector challenge that it truly is.
After all, is it not often said by top secuity functionaries that security is not the duty of government alone?
At a recent lecture held in commemoration of the 60th birthday of Akin Osuntokun, Prof Anya O Anya, an erudite scholar and one-time chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, pointed out that as a nation we have passed the stage of blaming our leaders for our woes. According to him, what we should be doing right now is to ask: What do we do?
I align with the elder statesman’s position.  We as a people can do something by setting up a task force with a specific mandate to end insecurity in the country in the manner that the Presidential Task Force to end the COVID-19 pandemic was set up in 2019 by President Buhari and headed by Boss Mustafa, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, with active participation by the private sector and driven by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
It needs no repeating that the founding of CACOVID, a coalition of captains of industry or club of multi billionaires who injected not only billions of naira in funding, but also came up with strategies and implementation methodologies in the fight against COVID-19, contributed a great deal in checking the spread of the deadly disease in the country.
There may be a need and justification for the current standing COVID-19 public /private sector Task Force to be transformed into a National Security Task Force to address the twin monster of terrorism and secessionism that have the capacity to and is fast ripping our country apart. In the USA, there is a law called the Patriot Act, which empowers government to compel corporations to yield or their facilities towards producing war armaments. The law was recently invoked to fight COVID-19 pandemic by former President Donald Trump. Although that is not what l am advocating, corporate Nigeria had voluntarily yielded their financial resources towards the battle against the pandemic here.
The CACOVID team is not only a collection of billionaires, but also a formidable repository of the best strategists in Nigeria. They may not be a repository of military skills, but war is about strategies and successful business men/women are basically proven strategists, hence they are able to come into the humongous wealth that they control. While the military prosecute the war , the CACOVID team of wise men/women can look at other ways (including negotiations) of restoring sanity and sanctity into our beleaguered polity and highly distressed society.
It is a plus that private sector involvement in security is not novel in Nigeria. The Lagos State Government’s partnership with the private sector, (especially the financial services sector) to enforce security in the bustling city of Lagos, is instructive. It is therefore a model that could be adopted because it is largely responsible for the relatively high level of security of lives and properties in the state, the reason Lagos seems to be insulated from the current bedlam.
Now, if COVID-19 pandemic posed enough threat to lives, such that it warranted the setting up of CACOVID to mitigate the risk to human capital(essential for the sustenance of businesses), then insecurity of lives and properties, which would constrain growth and also hobble the inflow of foreign direct investment that could have direct negative impact on the fortunes of the billionaire club members, must be a compelling reason for the team that made CACOVID a game changer in the war against COVID-19 pandemic, to join in the war against terrorism that has driven our country to the point of tipping her over, unless extraordinary measures  are adopted.
I am not unaware that the private sector may loathe the idea of being involved in such a highly combustible matter of joining in the fight to save our country from collapse, owing to the onslaught of religious insurgents and secessionists. Whereas the concern that corporate sector involvement in national security has the tendency to trigger negative backlash, which may be consequential to brand image is real, the potential benefits of winning the peace in our country in the long run outweigh the risk.
Comparatively, helping to save lives through strategic interventions via contribution of financial resources and strategy, is less contentious because it will rub off positively on the brand simply because doing good can be categorised as a cause related marketing strategy, which evinces empathy that can be converted into brand love and loyalty.
Helping to save the country is one of the hard choices that the corporate world or billionaires’ clubs will have to make. And choosing to save their businesses, which will not thrive in an atmosphere of anarchy that our country is fast descending to, is clearly one of those difficult, but necessary choices that they must make.
Hopefully, it will be a New Year gift to Nigerians when the critical stakeholders highlighted earlier join in the struggle to pull our country back from the brink.
