INSURGENCY AND INSECURITY

A rebellion– especially one against an internationally recognized government of a country– which is orchestrated by a group of non-belligerents is an Insurgency!

Insecurity is a feeling of uncertainty, a lack of confidence or anxiety about you or the state of being open to danger or threat; lack of protection.

Year-in, year-out, decades after decades and centuries upon centuries, there has continued to be recurrent calls for the eradication of illiteracy globally. The experience over the years has, however, shown that no target fixed for the eradication of illiteracy has ever been met. There have always been renewed calls for the eradication of illiteracy at the expiration of a countless number of failed decades set as targets for ‘Education for All’ without meeting the target. Parts of the major causes of unrealized and unfulfilled dreams of education for all have been challenges posed by insurgency and insecurity bedeviling the entire world.

The outbreak of insurgencies culminating in a high level of insecurity has hampered children’s and adults’ access to all forms of education be it formal, non-formal, or adult education. Due to insurgencies, schools have been physically touched, destroyed, burnt, and broken down. The systems of education in many countries globally have been adversely affected. Communities scattered and destabilized, people displaced and killed.

Terrorism is another dimension of the prevalence of insecurity and insurgency. Achumba et al. (2013) defined terrorism as the premeditated, threat or use of violence by an individual or group to cause fear, destruction, or death, especially against unarmed targets, property or infrastructure in a state, intended to compel those in authority to respond to the demands and expectations of the individual or group behind such violent acts.

Muzan (2014) also said terrorism is any act that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants (in a conflict) with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act. Examples are Boko Haram in Nigeria, Hamas in Palestine, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), El-Shabab in Somalia, etc. All of these insurgencies including other armed groups directly carry attacks on education.

The consequences of any act of violence are often despicable and far-reaching. The analysis of the impacts of the insurgency on human security will be based on the broader perspective of human security with a particular focus on food and nutrition, health, shelter, education, and protection which are the primary needs of every individual.

In literature, many reasons have been given for the attacks suffered by education by insurgents. Since their grievances are against the governments and their policies, the insurgents view attacking schools as directly striking one of the institutional sources of strength and relevance of the Government to the people being governed. The insurgents also are aware that education is what touches all the citizens, so attacking it makes all citizens feel the impact of their campaigns

It is often said that prevention is better than cure. However, the cure becomes imperative at the instance of occurrence. Now that insurgency and insecurity have occurred, proactive measures need to be made. The first thing is not rebuilding the damaged school buildings but repairing and rebuilding the damaged security. It is only when adequate security is put in place as earlier pointed out in this article that every other act of reconstruction of physical facilities can be meaningful.

Thus, according to Coursen-Neff, et al. (2010), putting an end to attacks on schools, teachers, and students requires action at national and international levels on three fronts:
(i) Stronger monitoring systems;
(ii) Targeted preventive measures, and more decisive and timely response when incidents do occur.
(iii) Effective justice mechanisms that hold violators of domestic and international law accountable.

OTHER ACTIONS WHICH MUST BE TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT TO END INSURGENCY AND INSECURITY

a) Rehabilitation centres and career opportunities should be created for dismissed Soldiers and Police, to forestall their emergence into terrorists after their dismissal.

b) The education or career of all the Soldiers that discharged voluntarily without reaching pension age and was paid off, should be sponsored. Government should also cater to all their basic needs because it is better for Government to spend some of the nation’s money on building the people that served the nation faithfully and discharged voluntarily than wasting the money on things that will not contribute positively to the well being of the nation. We know that a military job is a voluntary job and any skill or knowledge that anybody gains from the military can still be used to develop the nation outside the military. Such a people, if not Valued by the government, can be easily enticed with money by the terrorists. Poverty makes it even easier!

c) There must be equal rights for everybody and an individual must be able to afford all the necessary things easily at any time without difficulty.

d) Government should avoid anything that will frustrate the effort of upright people because if there is no frustration there will be no misbehavior.