Nigerians were recently amazed following the presentation of 2012 budget by President Goodluck Jonathan. Not because what everybody expected, (fuel subsidy) was not mentioned in the budget, but because of the budgetary allocations to individual sectors which favours some sectors above others. What particularly attracts my own submission is the plum allocation to security against all others. Expectedly, there have been comments from a cross-section of the public on why security with (N921.91b) could be such favoured that it is more than twice the allocation to education (N400.15b) which follows it, when we are not executing a war. But frankly speaking, no amount of resources is too much to maintain security of a nation, since no meaningful development can take place in an unsecured atmosphere.However, much as security deserves the full attention of the government especially with the present case in Nigeria, it is important to study the scenarios surrounding insecurity in order to be able to adequately tackle it. The current security situation in Nigeria deserves not impetuous but holistic solution. The increasing spate of violence and insecurity in the country did not develop overnight. It is as a result of accumulated unresolved fundamental issues that bother on our existence as a nation. Unarguably, the Nigerian nation has over time been bedevilled by sundry of injustices perpetrated by either the rulers against the ruled or the ruled against themselves. While the former is independent, the latter is an offshoot of the former. The Jos mahyem, the Boko Haram issue in the North, kidnapping in the East and the MEND upheavals in the South-South, among others are all consequent upon the bitterness that had been meted out to the society in the past, many of which are still going on unaddressed. The chief of these sins against the society are to mention just a few: Acute unemployment, opportunity inequality, total collapse of infrastructure and widened gap between the poor and the rich, all of which are occasioned by gross insensitivity and selfishness on the part of the rulers.At this juncture, to succinctly identify the causes of violence in the country, let me borrow an excerpt from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1994), 'the social discord created by the huge contrasts in economic well-being that is, abject poverty in closely juxtaposition with great wealth, and the frustration produced by marginalisation and the inability to do anything about it are perhaps the most significant motives for crimes and urban violence.' In addition, lack of prospects and or opportunities for upward social mobility, negative socialisation, poor education, peer pressure and poor job prospects, absence of strong legal deterrents, general breakdown of family values, lack of social control within the communities which tends to cancel out community influence in dealing with deviant behaviours are other causes of repeated violence and crimes in the country. All these, if sincerely addressed, the security issue would have been automatically resolved to an extent. However, the way government wants to handle the situation, especially judging by the budgetary allocation to the sector, enough caution has to be exercised. The social order must be reversed, first to economically arm the poor masses as against the current order where less than 10 percent of the population control more than 90 percent of the country's resources thereby leaving the remaining little percentage (less than 10 percent) for the majority poor masses to compete for. The minds of individuals have to be reformed and reshaped and mindset changed for better. If the people are not redeemed, and the many wrongs identified not corrected, no amount of resources allocated to security will be meaningful. Also, the working conditions of the security personnel must be attended to, their overall welfare must be generously met. What I mean by this is what goes to their pockets at the end of the month, bearing in mind that many corruptive intents of many security officials are on many occasions, predicated upon poor remuneration packages. Otherwise, many of the shophiscated gadgets procured for state security outfits will end up in the hands of criminals. In a society where vices are institutionalised and violence is seen to be pursued in the name of justice by the oppressed and in fear of displacement by the threatened, further importation of arms and ammunition will only add to the weaponry of the criminals whether directly or indirectly. Government must fight insecurity by providing employment, arming the youths by productively engaging both their minds and hands. Government should have spent more on agriculture, power, health and others above security at least in the interest of empowering the citizens and meeting the millennium development goals by 2015. An idle mind is a devil's workshop.'Mayowa wrote in from Bale Agbe Quarters, Oje Owode.
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