In 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan deployed a contingent of troops to Mogadishu, Somalia as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
Yesterday, Al-Shabab, an Islamic fundamentalist group with origins in Somalia claimed responsibility for an attack at the Westlands mall in an upscale area of Nairobi that has left over 59 people dead including American, Canadian, French and British citizens.
The well coordinated attacks took local law enforcement by surprise despite several warnings by the group indicating that the mall was on their target list. The reason for the attack, according to Al-Shabab (which means the Youth in Arabic) was as a result of the presence of Kenyan troops in Somalia, troops they alleged were killing Muslims.
Despite the relative surprise of the attack, the Kenyan armed forces including a team of joint police, soldiers and special security agents stormed the mall and were able to rescue hundreds of people before the attackers could do more damage. As at press time, the attackers are still in the mall, still very much armed and holding hostages. It is a precarious situation.
Fast forward to Nigeria, where our citizens are busy celebrating Obi Mikel’s goal and the latest viral dance video to be logged into the Davido Skelewu competition. Assuming Boko Haram whom the Nigerian army is still coping with decides to storm one of the shopping malls in Abuja or Lagos, what would be the fate of some of us social media users. One has to assume very similar to the victims of Al-Shabab’s Westlands mall attack.
Our government does not have a serious approach to tackling the myriad defense issues battling the country. Federal and State governors are busy playing 2015 lotto and all other kinds of childish politics whilst the lives of the citizenry are in a constant state of peril. “E fit be you o”! That slogan is what the Kenyans would do well to tell us, or we would do well to remind ourselves. Only last week in Apo area of Abuja, soldiers apparently for hire stormed an uncompleted building in the middle of the night and killed several innocent squatters under the guise that they were Boko Haram, even though the alleged terrorists looked harmless, were for the most part fast asleep and were completely unarmed. Now the spin doctors at the Nigerian Army are trying to make it look like there was probable cause for a full scale attack in a residential area on homeless Nigerian citizens.
Needless to say, such incidence can only reinforce the doctrine of Boko Haram as preached to the poor and further swell their ranks. All this whilst PResident Jonathan is recording the First Lady dancing Skelewu on the Presidential Jet. Labran Maku, a man, who cannot adequately run the Information Ministry has been given the portfolio of Defense ministry to juggle alongside that of Information.
The Federal Government has budgeted trillions in defense spending, yet most of that money goes to ex-militants, corrupt officials and contractors. This whilst the police is underpaid, under-equipped and struggling with low morale. Recently the rank and file of the police groaned as deductions were made from their meager salaries of about N22,000/month. It was against this backdrop that the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar had a rockstar style wedding which cost millions of Naira just for pop star Kecee’s performance alone.
Examining the retail malls in Nigeria and the security infrastructure, we gather that Ikeja mall has an entry and exit system that could be enhanced to boost security, however is currently only activated to boost profits from the parking lot. There is also a retinue of about 10 to 20 armed mobile policemen stationed just outside Ikeja mall at any given time, however this also would not deter an Al-Shabab style commando attack on the mall.
On the other hand, the Palms shopping mall which has a lot of expatriate traffic is a sitting lame duck. There is hardly any security precaution taken at the first mall to be built in Lagos. Owners of the mall are supposed to be embarking on an expansion to double its size soon, and they would do well to ensure that stringent and copious security measures are put into place.
Abuja’s Silverbird Entertainment Center has a pretty decent security infrastructure including car screening before entry (they learned from the UN attack), and metal detectors at the door. The traffic to enter the mall is high due to the security screening but it ensures that car bomb attacks are reduced. However the mall would do well to increase the presence of armed stern security officials at all entry and exit points so commando styled attacks would be less possible or successful.
All the malls in Nigeria need to consider revamping their security infrastructure. Also local law enforcement need to be better equipped, trained and compensated so they do not do what Nigerian police have been known to do in the presence of overwhelming danger…flee!
CCTV camera’s need to be employed in a more proactive manner. Only earlier this month, a security guard at Ikeja mall robbed his employers, and the police took all the staff to Alausa police station to interrogate them and even collected ‘bail’ from one of the staff’s. This despite the presence of CCTV in the mall and in the store that could have easily made short work of the investigation.
Nigeria has a long way to go, however now is a good enough starting point. Our hearts go out to Kenyans who have lost loved ones as well as members of the international community in the same boat. Nigeria is also a target, and we all need to collaborate to reduce any potential collateral damage that could arise from copycat attacks.
This article was sent in by Femi Williams, a businessman from Lagos.