Tackling Security Lapses In The Niger Delta

The natural terrain of the Niger Delta is bedecked with all manner of rivulets, tributaries, creeks and turbulent waters that is difficult to navigate especially if one is not versed with the environment.
Paradoxically, the Niger Delta terrain boasts of many companies engaged in the extracting of hydrocarbons which ultimately leads to a flamboyant lifestyle. In keeping with the propensity of keeping up with the Joneses, many youths have been led astray to embrace a lifestyle of criminality with intent to meet up with bogus social expectations.
It is little wonder that some misguided youths venture into the pseudo-business of kidnapping, perhaps with intent to take their pound of flesh on society. It was rather shocking to note recently, that these daredevil kidnappers had the nerve to kidnap innocent students who were on their way to write this year’s West African School Certificate.
Having swooped on their prey, the kidnappers spirited the victims into their hideouts without being apprehended by security agents. The brazen kidnapping of innocent adults and secondary school students on the Bille waterways is as unacceptable as it is unconscionable.
Not too long ago, the Rivers State government in an effort to bolster the capabilities of our security outfits donated several gunboats to our security personnel with intent to beef up the policing of our sometimes secluded waterways.
Granted that it might not be a piece of cake for our security personnel to give adequate protection and security to passengers plying our vast waterways, it must be restated categorically that this is the job profile of our security personnel and they must acquit themselves frontally to the task at hand.
It has been observed with regret that, our security personnel have a way of diverting gunboats meant for the protection of passenger boats to protect oil company workers.
Regrettably, this could explain why normal passenger boats are ignored and exposed to the criminality of these sea pirates.
It is somewhat discomfiting to note that the mainstream security could not secure the release of the hostages, rather a private security firm known as Amama soldiers were drafted in to secure the release of the hostages.
While we applaud the co-operation and the collaboration of our conventional security forces with the private security firm, the recent release of these hostages, leaves much to be desired on the efficiency of our conventional security forces and perhaps the Marine Police.
Inasmuch as the Amama soldiers deserve all the plaudits for their swift intervention, there needs to be a massive overhaul of Nigeria’s security forces policing our waterways. If they are not conversant with our intricate creeks and terrain, our conventional security forces need to synergize with the locals and personnel that are well versed in the peculiar geographical terrain of the Niger Delta.
It must be emphasized that the primary function of government is to secure the lives and property of its citizens. We hope that the incapacity and inaction of our conventional security forces would not propel our people to utter despair and dismay with regard to the efficacy of government.