Mediaage NG News – ABUJA, Nigeria
Assistant Professor, International Security, Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Akinyemi Oyawale, recently in an event, gave his views on some of insecurity problems facing the Nigerian state, especially the nefarious activities of Boko Haram in the country’s Northeast.
While speaking from his presentation at the Gender, Insecurity and Resilience In The Global South: A Policy Roundtable, hosted by Centre For Media Policy and Accountability (CMPA), he said it is difficult to understand what residents in these affected areas such as Gwoza in Borno State, face daily in the heat of insurgency ravaging the region.
His presentation addressed some of the researches carried out by him since 2014, which evolves around insecurity and gender issues.
Describing some first hand experiences of security threats he has witnessed while in Abuja over a decade ago, he said the university space have siloed itself so much from the society and policy makers that has led to lack of communication and has become a form of the “Tower of Babel”.
“We don’t speak across to people who have these life experiences, like the people who have experienced insecurity and policy makers. We become theoretical”, he said in Abuja on Tuesday 09th July, 2024.
“I identified two main problems and the first one is the state of terrorism research in security studies more broadly in Africa and in Nigeria. They (authorities) lack experiences of those living with insecurity.
‘When you have someone who’s just sitting here in the capital, proffering solutions to insecurity problems but, you are asking yourself what about that young woman in Gwoza or Kaduna or those persons that actually see what insecurity is? Those experiences can really be valuable and that’s one of my arguments that brought me into security research.
The second one is the inadequate engagement with gender, not merely as an empirical category here where we talk about what has happened to ‘women’ and ‘girls’ but, as an analytical tool that goes beyond just ‘women’ and ‘girls’ but equally importantly, addresses masculinity and feminity, i.e., how experiences of insecurity and practices of security are gendered. Gender covers both cultural and social dimensions and it then becomes possible to have men that ‘feminized’, i.e., imbued with feminine features and women who are ‘masculinized’, imbued with masculine features and attributes.
He said his project adopted semi-structured interviews with internally displaced persons during a four-month ethnography at IDP camps and host communities in Abuja, Nasarawa and Niger States. “These are silenced voices that we seldom talk about or engage with to understand Insecurity”, he revealed.
“We can broaden that to other aspects of claims made about the Global South. How do we understand the concept of the ‘Global South’ itself? Can we take it for granted? When it related to ‘Global South’, it is contrasted from the ‘Global North’ in terms of economic achievements and advancement or lack thereof. You can see a rationalized dynamics where the most powerful agencies are the ones to proffer solutions to problems in the ‘Global South’ through institutions even if they lack genuine experiences of first-hand knowledge of these challenges.
These are typical of global political dynamics”, Prof. Oyawale stated.
On finding solutions to some of the security issues in the country, he identified a vernacular security approach which entails adopting a more indigenous or native ways of solving the problems, an involving those who are directly suffering attacks from insurgents, kidnappers and bandits.
“They really have a say in security policies and these are people who understand more of the social dynamics of their communities. The state has the duty to provide security for its residents”, he said.
During the panel session containing Kemi Okenyodo, Executive Director of Partners West Africa Nigeria (PWAN), Barr. Obaro Fikih from FIDA Nigeria, Dr. Fatima Akilu from NEEM Foundation and Isa Sanusi from Amnesty International.
Kemi Okenyodo began by saying that defining gender from a cultural perspective shows a woman who is subjugated. She faulted the lack of inclusiveness suffered by the female gender today, adding that Westernisation, assimilation and education “has brought us to where we are”.
Referencing the Yoruba Traditional Council in the pre and post colonial era, she said the King dares not sit if the Iyalode is not seated. “A quorum is not formed without her”, she said.
The present state of the society has seen women and the girl child vulnerable to violence, rape and sexual slavery.
“What are we not getting right? Kemi asked.
“The girl child, aged 12, 13, 14 is forced into marriage and starts facing that obligation that comes with marriage – bearing children. You also have the girl child that is kidnapped by bandits or terrorists and is coerced into marriage. In the first context, ‘the kidnappers’ could be people she knows, loves and respects. It could be her father, mother, or uncle that forcefully took her out of school, takes her to the house of that man and life starts. The consent of the girl child is not in question here, her consent is not sort.
“Look at Niger and Zamfara States, orphans are being married off. This stems from the root cause – lack of inclusive governance . The states are now perpetrating it through the guise of humanitarian affairs.
“The money paid as dowry, if they put it together, pulled into a fund for development and progress of the girl child, it would rather help their cause. When you do the basics with the girl child, you will see how her life will improve.
“There’s a nexus between insurgency and terrorism. The government has not lived above board to create a standard. There is the penal code and criminal code across the country”.
She also cited the lack of full inclusiveness in security agencies in the country, like the Nigerian Police where women hardly make the grade in high ranking positions.
“Are they looking at the figures? No, she asked and replied.
“What we are looking at presently, we saw that the Police Force has less than ten percent of women working with it. Look at the management team of the Police, there is no one of them. If you start counting how many women are CPs (Commissioners of Police)? The women that joined (recruited), where are they? And the ones that even wanted to join (be recruited), where are they? It means that engaging from the point of view of the state, it’s still going to fall short. The men cannot engage in women related issues”, she stated.
Barr. Obaro Fikih said while the female is always a focus when gender issues are discussed, there are men who are also victims of insecurity problems in the society.
“They go out for war and it is something we have to put into perspective when discussing gender, he stated.
“Men who willingly agree to serve security situations, face circumstances in the event of wars. They are forced to support the agenda of corporate entrepreneur. Corporate entrepreneurship is something that is very lucrative for those in business”.
However, he agreed that both genders are affected, with the female gender, the more vulnerable.
“While women are seen as the most vulnerable, seen as sex slaves, seen as easily affected by social violence, seen as victims of rape, the males also suffer gender imbalance, he stated.
“But, when the conversation comes to vulnerability, we do know that women are the major victims. Some are being used to perpetrate evil.
“We also need to look at the economic roles that women tend to play in solving insecurity issues. You see husbands who go out to face wars, the women automatically take charge of the family, making use of the economic resources available. These are some of the things we also need to put into account in issues relating to insecurity”.