[size=15pt]Nigeria: Is the Country Really Unsafe?[/size]

BY IDANG ALIBI, 25 APRIL 2013

Daily Trust, Nigeria


OPINION



My going around with the National Good Governance Tour team has opened my eyes to the fact that Nigeria is not in any way near the picture of it created, largely by sensational reporting, which portrays her as a possibly dangerous and unsafe place unfit as an investment or tourism destination.

In all nooks and crannies of the 18 states so far visited in the course of the tour, we see foreign consultants, contractors and expatriate workers and business men be they Arabs, Europeans, Americans, Latinos and Asians, especially Koreans, Indians, Chinese and Philippines, going about their business without any sign of agitation or feeling of insecurity whatsoever. Some of these men have fruitful liaison with Nigerian women and seem at home in Nigeria and at ease with the local communities in which they do business. I was pleasantly surprised to see Chinese in some of the remotest parts of Kebbi State which we just visited constructing roads and bridges in some of the most difficult terrains in the state.

But media portraiture often seems to indicate that Nigeria is at war with itself. In some of the most remote parts of the country where you do not expect to find any strangers, let alone complete foreigners, you see them mixing freely with the natives and other Nigerian workers from outside those domains. They cut a picture of a people who are going about doing their businesses unchallenged and unfazed by any threat of danger of any kind. They are not surrounded by gun-toting security men to provide them free movement or to ensure their safety and security.

You do not see any signs of anxiety or concern of any kind on their faces. As I said earlier, some of those communities are so remote that one does not expect even non-native Nigerians to be found in them. Yet, you see these foreigners in those places, clearly passing a vote of confidence on the safety of Nigeria as a tourism and business destination. I was shocked when we saw some Italians constructing the Ogoni-Nkoro-Andoni road which is meant to link those places by road with Port Harcourt. The Rivers' State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, has become so familiar with these contractors that he is on first name terms with them. They emerged from the remote creeks and seemed to be so familiar with the terrain than even the native owners of the land. This is not a country which is portrayed as a haven for terrorists of all hues. Yes, we have Boko Haram and now a breakaway faction Ansaru. Yes, we used to have Niger Delta agitators who used to kidnap for ransom. But that is not nearly as frightening as is portrayed. My humble counsel is that our media must deliberately tone down the reportage of violence in our country, because as we have seen in other societies, violence cannot be completely absent in any place. We just must tone down because we cannot afford to feed others with the ammunition to use to do harm to our country.

There is no denying it that like other countries at this level of our development, we have cases of kidnapping, armed robbery, abduction, senseless murder and rape here and there. But the image of Nigeria created by these criminal acts is grossly distorted. It is exaggerated to the point of a deliberate campaign of calumny against the country. Who is the main culprit? The answer is unmistakeably the domestic media of mass communication. When one who is a journalist says this he is often accused of being bought over by government.

But the truth is that the enemy for this campaign against Mother Nigeria is not the foreign media but the home one. I say so because the foreign media tend to take a cue from what is reported locally.

Many foreigners who defy the usually ugly picture that is painted of Nigeria and come and live here to do business have often pointed out that we tend to be very unfair to our country and by implication, to ourselves. The Honorary Adviser to Nigeria on Investment, Baroness Linda Chalker, has been crying her voice coarse appealing to even our local journalists to treat their country more kindly. We write as if we want to write Nigeria out of existence. To some of our people, bashing Nigeria is another form of patriotism. In expressing our frustration at the failure of some of our leaderships, we must not end up spiting our country.

Let us make no mistake about it. Nobody is calling on the media to gloss over any cases of criminality in our country. They indeed have a duty and responsibility to draw attention to crimes or any other actions that are capable of harming the country in any way. But I dare to say that although we have our fair share of crimes, some of the crimes the media blow out of proportion have not reached the extremely worrying height they have reached in other countries at this level of our development. The few criminal cases we see in Nigeria is not in any way different from what happens in other countries. In fact there are more rapes, more carjacking, more robbery in some African countries than in Nigeria. Nairobi, for instance, is often mischievously called Nairobbery because of the many cases of robbery in that country. We are not by any means calling for them to reach such levels before action is taken but the media must display extreme discretion in the handling of negative news reporting.

What is happening today is that those who are supposed to be media gate keepers throw caution or discretion to the dogs and act as if they are foreign mercenaries hired to run down their country. Nigeria is being deliberately libelled and treated as if a rival competitor is out to de-market the country. Since a country is a corporate person, our government should treat this truly criminal offence as if Nigeria was a gentleman whose name is being dragged in the mud.

Nigeria is a victim of scare-mongering, sadly with local journalists as accomplices. President Goodluck Jonathan must regard this particular threat facing his country as a big one most deserving of a full national retreat in order to be able to find a solution. If the murders and rap.e that take place in the USA and South Africa are handled the way we Nigerian journalists handle some clearly minor infractions, the USA and South Africa would be places where no one would want to visit for business or for pleasure.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201304250421.html?viewall=1

Can you drive from Abia to Abuja leaving Abia by 7pm to try and catch a meeting in Abuja by 12noon the next day without having 3 escorts who are armed with near war zone weapons escorting you

^^ Absolutely. The roads are filled with thousands of cars at all hours of the night and day. You wouldn't know this because you're in London.

Rossikk: ^^ Absolutely. The roads are filled with thousands of cars at all hours of the night and day. You wouldn't know this because you're in London.

Sorry, even though I live in the UK, as you may well have noticed I travel alot and Nigeria is one place I visit alot so I know first hand what it is like.

The fact is I can leave my house at 8pm tonight and drive all the way to Wales, or even Edinburgh and I would arrive there feeling safe and enjoying my gospel music all through the night with my heart feeling at home with me.

I remember traveling from Lagos at 7pm to Benin City and I got there at 2am due to traffic and only missed being attacked by thieves by a whisker and the reminder of the drive was on top speed! Even getting to stop at major eatery where those caoches from the East usual stop was a HUGE risk.

Lets stop kidding ourselves, Nigeria is only safe to those who have the means to protect themselves or have little of no value to loose if attacked.

Rossikk: ^^ Absolutely. The roads are filled with thousands of cars at all hours of the night and day. You wouldn't know this because you're in London.

I commend your optimistic look on Nigeria even though i realize that there are real security challenges in the country.

Rossikk: ^^ Absolutely. The roads are filled with thousands of cars at all hours of the night and day. You wouldn't know this because you're in London.

Dude, can you be truthful for once,,,,just for once? Thesame nigeria I just returned from, less than a week ago is safe to travel within, at all hours of the day?

kidnapping is now a normal thing and affects those who refuse to go about with police escort; alas they end up paying millions to be released.

yeboyes:

I commend your optimistic look on Nigeria even though i realize that there are real security challenges in the country.

Dude, we are all optimistic and committed to Nigeria, else many of us would have put our investment elsewhere. The truth is, things are not good and there is no visible sign that We are changing things for the better. We keep deceiving ourselves by not being honest and addressing our short fall squarely. Let call a spade a spade. We have serious security challenge, coupled with very high poverty that requires urgent redress by the leadership in the land to forestall the human catastrophe that would greet the nationhood soonest.

Some of us do our very best to promote Nigeria, but Nigeria does very little to promote herself

@poster

Why not travel to Maiduguri, Kano, Zamfara and spend few days there before coming here to tell us how safe Nigeria is? Are those places not part of Nigeria? I travelled from New Jersey to North Carolina between 1:30am and 9am without any itch from police, armed-robbers or anyone, could that be possible in Nigeria with a brand new car in the middle of the night? You are spinning too much these days, bro. Just yesterday you came here to post about a phony $100B investment coming to Nigeria. Stop it!

Afam4eva:
[size=14pt]The guy's brand of patriotism can really be annoying because even the devil knows that he's lying...You don't even need to go to Maiduguri or any part of the North to see that Nigeria is not safe. Even in broad daylight, people are been robbed in traffic in the center of the city and we're even talking about traveling inter-state.[/size]

We need the ignore button permanently attached to Rossike's handle looool...

The guy is becoming a nuisance with his extremism...

payless: @poster

Why not travel to Maiduguri, Kano, Zamfara and spend few days there before coming here to tell us how safe Nigeria is? Are those places not part of Nigeria? I travelled from New Jersey to North Carolina between 1:30am and 9am without any itch from police, armed-robbers or anyone, could that be possible in Nigeria with a brand new car in the middle of the night? You are spinning too much these days, bro. Just yesterday you came here to post about a phony $100B investment coming to Nigeria. Stop it!

Why are you quoting Maiduguri and Kano? The writer himself stated clearly that those were areas where insurgents operate. His point was that Maiduguri and Kano constitute less than 0.2% of Nigeria, and therefore ought not be used to categorise the entire country as unsafe. I think he makes a great point.

As for armed robbery, LET'S GET ONE THING STRAIGHT, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW:

99.99% MINIMUM of Nigerians who travel our roads every day and night arrive safely and comfortably at their destinations. The fear of harm is greater than the scale of its occurrence.

Omo_Tier1:
I remember traveling from Lagos at 7pm to Benin City and I got there at 2am due to traffic and only missed being attacked by thieves by a whisker and the reminder of the drive was on top speed! Even getting to stop at major eatery where those caoches from the East usual stop was a HUGE risk.

Swear that this wasn't over ten years ago.

That's a direct challenge.

I've told you to drop your old views on the Naija you left behind in the 90s. Naija has changed. Armed robbery has decreased compared to what it used to be back in your days. You really need to get with the program. When we're travelling now we hardly even think about robbers.

^^By statistical and demographic analysis.

@Rossikk..,thanks for bringing this article to the fore. I almost shed tears after reading the article. Its very unfortunate that Nigeria is an ORPHAN. There are very very few Nigerians. What we have are Igbos, Yorubas, Hausas, Fulanis, Ijaws, PDP members, ACN members, CPC members,etc

I dont understand why 'Nigerian' journalists love to bombard us with negative news day and night. Is it to boost sales or promote partisan interest?

Take the recent incident at Baga in Borno for instance. The military authorities have given an official casuality figure but the Nigerian media still insist on the hearsay casuality figure of 185 dead. Foreign media organisations quote official casuality figures, not hearsays. But the reverse is the case in Nigeria. There are several good things happening in this country but unfortunately, the Nigerian media has turned itself to hunter of only bad news. Another example is yesterdays Premium Times report about the briefing of the minister of works. Premium Times wrote generously about a budgetary shortfall of N921billion to complete ongoing road projects but completely ignored the part where the minister of works listed 32 road projects that were completed in 2012.

Bad news from corruption to insecurity are blown out of proportion while good news are suppressed.

By the way, for those arguing about travels at night in Nigeria. The fact is that people travel at night EVERY DAY. Passenger luxurious buses travel at night. In fact most long distance drivers prefer to travel at night.

Rossikk:

Swear that this wasn't over ten years ago.

That's a direct challenge.

I've told you to drop your old views on the Naija you left behind in the 90s. Naija has changed. Armed robbery has decreased compared to what it used to be back in your days. You really need to get with the program. When we're travelling now we hardly even think about robbers.

The number one challenge of night travels in Nigeria is bad road but the roads are improving now. Next challenge, I think, is visibility. Armed robbery is down the ladder.

In the North if you see a guy walking with a limp, thats a Bomb walk.

In South if you hear Oga disappeared thats a kidnap ...
The best thing is to close your eyes n pretend all is well so that life will go on.

Its not safe oo

Lets not derail the thread by arguing with Rossikk....Is Nigeria really unsafe? Yes and NO.Honestly largely NO. I grew up in Ibadan and always stay in IB whenever I'm in Nigeria. Perhaps due to having a 'son of the soil' feeling, I pretty much travel around IB anytime of the day. I can hit Lagos-Ibadan at any time of the night. So far, I havent been robbed, my only fear is accident with Dangote's trucks on the pot-holed roads
I fully agree that some parts of the country are unsafe, but honestly that is more to do with perceptive fear than actual insecurity. But again, perceptive fear builds on years of constant occurrence.

its safely unsafe to say its safe but all the same. it is unsafely safe

Unsafe is another name for Nigeria.Nobody is sure about Nigeria... Everything is unsafe full stop..

Hmmmm.

Rossikk:

Why are you quoting Maiduguri and Kano? The writer himself stated clearly that those were areas where insurgents operate. His point was that Maiduguri and Kano constitute less than 0.2% of Nigeria, and therefore ought not be used to categorise the entire country as unsafe. I think he makes a great point.

As for armed robbery, LET'S GET ONE THUING STRAIGHT, RIGHT HGRE, RIGHT NOW:

99.99% MINIMUM of Nigerians who travel our roads every day and night arrive safely and comfortably at their destinations. The fear of harm is greater than the scale of its occurrence.

Those 0.2% has turned out to disrupt the more than 70% of Nigeria's economic activities. Does Nigeria has an Economy

Yes, in the media buh very very safe when u talk about what's on ground. Datz all

I don't think some parts are really safe. Boko haram in the North, arm robbery and ritualists in the South West. Not really for some places.

*Watch this space for haters*

Naija safe die... Its almost 11pm and I'm still outside, chatting and commenting on stuffs(front page tins)...







Come 2 think of it, night don fall o.. Make i do enter house b4 boko boys steal my phone...




Naija is safe... Too safe..


*Enters house and locks door with two padlocks*

Summary plz. This stuff is too long

Naija is Devil's lab on earth. From police harassing u. Lagos area boys harrasing u.Thugs harrasing u on Ore Benin road. Bye-pass thugs, upper iweka police and thugs, Aba-PHC thugs, police. The list is endless

For now, it is. Unlike mexico and brazil, the murder capital of the world, pakistan: the most dangerous place for journalist. Syria, war zone and no respect for human right by any mean.
So, naija is still safe oo. Since u can wake up and sleep peacefully, and you still eat 2 to 3 meals per day...