THE news broke a few days ago that runway lights on domestic runway 18/36L of the Murtala Muhammad Airport, in Lagos, got stolen and it left me with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Runway 18/36L of the Lagos airport had been shut down for maintenance, and the runway lights had been installed only last November.
The development speaks volumes about how we take security generally in our country. There is no doubt that the country is presently facing humonguous security challenges, but thieves sneaking onto restricted areas of a major infrastructure facility like an airport brings the situation to an unprecedented low.
The questions on my mind, and no doubt, on the minds of many fellow compatriots, would be like: How did it happen? Insider collusion? Outright negligence? Dereliction of duty? More questions: Runway lightings are not ordinary electrical installations. It means the thieves have special equipment with which to remove them, while it also means there must be a market for the stolen items.
The lighting for a runway cannot be easily sold in the open market, thereby strengthening the notion that insider collusion must have aided the heist. Besides, the thieves must have known when security in the restricted areas of the airport would be most lax, hence they would know when to carry out their nefarious business, with all the time they need, including making their getaway with their heist. Shameful. Bad. Utterly reprehensible, and portrays us a nation that is not serious about anything. For instance, we have battled the issue of crude theft at out oil installations for years without much success. In fact, the oil thieves are getting bolder while the country haemorrhages from their devilry.
For me, the issue is: When will we get serious about security? If we cannot take care of simple issues like getting road users to stop driving against the traffic, or getting Okada riders to register their motorcycles, how can we tackle the bigger issues?
Governments have so far tackled the issue of insecurity with kid gloves. Changing security service chiefs may have some effect because the fish gets rotten from the head, but the Nigerian situation calls for a deeper and more profound solution than this. Those that have made calls for a re-jigging of the nation’s security architecture have their points. I join them, and submit that beyond a general rejig, complete reordering of security operations and recruiting of more hands will help. In addition to that, the time has come to take a hard, realistic look at the calls for state police, implement it, and let us see whether that arrangement will yield better dividends that currently obtains.
It is simply incredible that in MMIA,Lagos, which has a full Police Command dedicated to it, in addition to the Air Wing of the Police, the Air Force, and AVSEC (Aviation Security) operatives, people can be brazen enough to secure access to an airport runway and steal the lightings. It beats me hollow, and as a Nigerian, I am covering my face in shame at this monumental lapse.
The truth of the matter is that the country is under-policed. Even in Lagos, it is possible to drive many kilometres without seeing a policeman, not to talk of the large, sprawling ungoverned spaces that form the bulk of the national land-mass. It explains why and how it is easy for jihadists to enter the country, take control of areas they like, and levy taxes on our fellow compatriots, simply because there is no one, repeat, nobody in sight to even report their presence!
The other leg of the insecurity problem has to do with the citizenry itself. This is a country where very few citizens see critical national infrastructure like airports and railways as assets in which they have stakes. Many don’t even believe they were built to make lives easier and better for them, since they don’t get direct gratification from them, except those who are employed there.
As such, there are many among us bad enough to strip rail tracks of their steel, and sell them off to make money. It also includes tapping well heads and siphoning crude for sale or illegal refining. There are many more such anti-social businesses which many of our people engage in without consideration that it is bad for the commonwealth. It is a behavioural problem that needs to be tackled through social re-engineering programmes.
Many readers must have seen in the social media the viral video of a man, who at night, was captured on video while removing iron grilles used to cover drainage manholes on our roads. The video which showed the man, seen with a blue Toyota Sienna did not indicate in which town or city, or state, but it is evident that the fellow undertook to carry out his bad business, secure in the knowledge that he could do it unhindered and unapprehended. It is an emblem of poor, weak, ineffective policing, and that of a citizenry unschooled in civic obligations. The Tinubu Administration has a huge job to do. Securing the country and making it safe in all ramifications is one of them, because unsecured Nigeria remains insecure and bad for business, life, and living.
