In the lexicon of Nigerian statecraft, there is no greater admission of leadership failure than the invitation of a foreign auditor to inspect one’s own front yard. When Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State; now doubling as an aspirant to the presidency under the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), recently demanded a UN-backed investigation into the abduction of schoolchildren in his domain, he did not merely commit a diplomatic blunder. He performed a public act of institutional brigandage, signaling to the world that the Nigerian state is no longer a sovereign entity, but a collection of regional franchises waiting for a global administrator to switch on the lights. The governor’s misguided call notwithstanding, the reaction of the Nigerian state that mistook the call for international intervention for a policy, proves that vanity is the only truly functional branch of government.
It is a charmingly naive fantasy, this belief that the UN possesses a magic wand capable of exorcising the ghosts of banditry that haunt our highways and classrooms. One imagines a troop of blue-helmeted bureaucrats descending upon Ogbomosho with clipboards and mandates, expecting to find the root causes of our security collapse neatly filed in a cabinet; only to discover, as any half-attentive schoolchild could tell them, that the malaise is not a mystery of forensic science but a consequence of terminal political apathy.
The governor protests that his plea is “not about politics, but about justice.” How tedious. If Makinde were truly concerned with justice, he might have spent the energy expended on crafting this theatrical press release on the mundane, grinding labor of actually securing his state. There is a specific brand of modern Nigerian politician who believes that if one simply types “United Nations” into the search bar of public discourse, the problem of kidnapping will resolve itself via a sternly worded resolution from New York. It is, in truth, an old and tired pastime. From the “Crying Governor,” Sam Mbakwe, begging the British to return in 1979, to the hysterical petitions of various opposition chieftains begging Donald Trump to “save democracy,” we have a robust tradition of soliciting foreign salvation to hide our domestic incompetence. It is the political equivalent of a homeowner setting his own roof on fire and then calling the neighbors to complain that the fire department is insufficiently cosmopolitan.
The Presidency, through the ever-eccentric Bayo Onanuga, has predictably sneered at this “unpatriotic” request. The Senate, led by the bombastic Adams Oshiomhole, has demanded a withdrawal of the plea. They are technically correct, though not for the reasons they cite. Sovereignty is not undermined by the UN; it is rendered irrelevant by the inability of the Nigerian state to protect its most vulnerable citizens from being marched into the bush at gunpoint.
The core absurdity here is not the identity of the investigator, but the timing of the inquiry. Makinde desires a post-mortem; the people of Oyo require a prophylaxis. We are treated to the spectacle of a governor and a Federal Government trading jabs over a “frivolous” investigation into an incident that, by the administration’s own account, has already been resolved through military action. To demand an international investigation into a hostage rescue is to prioritize the autopsy over the surgery. If the Governor suspects that political enemies were behind the abduction, let him produce the evidence. If he suspects the military of collusion, let him go to the courts. If he merely suspects that he is out of his depth, he should shut up!. Instead, he invites the world to witness our national disarray, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the international community has no interest in governing Oyo State; it has quite enough trouble managing its own.
There is a lesson here that both the Governor and the ruling party are desperate to ignore: Security is not an external variable to be imported; it is an internal output of governance. If every abduction of a child necessitates a UN delegation, we might as well disband the Police Force, sack the Department of State Services, and outsource the entire Nigerian state to a foreign consultancy firm in Geneva. It would be cheaper, and we would be spared the daily indignity of watching our leaders blame “unseen hands” while the actual hands; the ones holding the rifles continue to operate with impunity across our borders.
Makinde’s call for a UN investigation is a confession of defeat masquerading as a demand for transparency. It is the final resort of the intellectually lazy. Until our governors stop acting like frustrated petitioners and start acting like chief security officers; ensuring that children can attend school without the need for a blue-helmeted chaperone, the only thing this “investigation” will establish is the utter irrelevance of the men in charge. The UN will not save us. Our institutions, currently rotting from the top down, will not save us. We are left with the grim reality that in Nigeria, the only thing more dangerous than the kidnappers is the political circus that flourishes in the vacuum they create.