Up until late last year, Nigeria, particularly the South-West and North-Central geo-political regions, was at the mercy of suspected herdsmen and other criminal elements kidnapping hapless citizens for ransom and even killing those who could not afford to buy their freedom. This New Year has also witnessed an unprecedented wave of violence and crimes.
The fear of suspected bandits and killer-herdsmen has become the beginning of wisdom for all travellers on the various major highways traversing the country.
AK-47 wielding suspected bandits are now having a field day across the country, perpetrating their nefarious and dastardly, but lethal act of kidnapping defenceless citizens for ransom.
According to a French Institute, in 2018, over 10,000 people were killed by Boko Haram insurgents, suspected Fulani herdsmen and kidnappers. The Global Terrorism Index for that year also attributed the killing of 1,700 people to Fulani herdsmen. Of course, the situation got worse in 2019 with more people killed in herdsmen-farmers’ clashes across the country! The Boko Haram, too, has continued in its terrible carnage, pillaging and killing more defenceless citizens and soldiers in the North-East.
Unfortunately, these criminal elements naturally find accommodation in a permissive atmosphere, where the appropriate authorities have remained somewhat complacent, even in the face of wanton destruction caused to human lives by these bandits. The alleged reticence of the Federal Government and the failure of the central security apparatus to deal decisively with the perpetrators have left many Nigerians in serious doubt about the ability of the state to adequately protect them from these savage predators.
This scary situation is aggravating with the renewed wave of violence and killings already witnessed in the New Year! Yet, for President Muhammadu Buhari, the seemingly incompetent Service Chiefs will not be sacked!
With the ostrich posture of both the Federal authorities and the central security agencies regarding the activities of suspected Fulani bandits, herdsmen and kidnappers, it is natural that citizens living in the affected areas will resort to self-help to secure their lives. It was in the light of this dangerous development that the militant Oodua Peoples Congress and the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams, last year, expressed the readiness to secure the states of the South-West against these rampaging savages.
But aside from the danger inherent in the threats by the OPC then, as commendable as the initiative by the group and the Aare Ona Kakanfo was, it was susceptible to abuse. Over-zealous operatives could exploit the situation to carry out reprisals against perceived enemies, especially amongst members of the other ethnic groups residing in Yorubaland. In the same vein, ethnic militias and other non-state actors in other parts of the country might hide under similar arrangement to witch-hunt people of other ethnic stock living in their midst.
It was apparently to prevent the unleashing of the dangers inherent in the above scenario that the governors of the six South-West states came up with the idea of a regional security network codenamed “Operation Amotekun.”
But unfortunately, the initiative by the South-West governors to complement the efforts of the police has been mired in controversy, especially since the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, declared it illegal. Although Malami later backed down and blamed the media for misrepresenting him as the Federal Government and the six governors of the South-West agreed on modalities to give Amotekun a legal backing, the initial brouhaha and suspicion stirred by the attorney general’s declaration of the initiative as illegal have yet to fully subside.
The current state of insecurity is a symptom of a complete failure of government to secure the lives and property of Nigerians. The setting up of regional security outfits, as being witnessed now in Nigeria, is infact a vote of no confidence on the Federal security architecture. The situation, no doubt, demands drastic practical action on the part of government.
Nobody would have thought of or even talk about Amotekun if the police had been alive to its constitutional responsibility of providing adequate security in all parts of Nigeria.
Last year, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Mr. Mike Okiro, a retired inspector general of police, lamented that of the 400, 000 police officers and men in the force, as many as 150,000 of them were attached to VIPs and other unauthorised persons, putting almost half of the nation’s total police personnel in private hands. This is shocking and sad!
This revelation by the PSC boss laid bare one of the cogent reasons behind the inability of the police to effectively perform its constitutional role of securing Nigeria internally.
It is very clear that 400, 000 police officers fall far short of the number required to secure about 190 million Nigerians and this gross shortage of policemen has left the majority of the citizens at the mercy of criminally-minded people terrorising the populace with impunity, of course, with the belief that they are far beyond the reach of the nation’s collapsed security architecture. And this is why the calls by citizens for restructuring and the creation of state police have become strident.
That the current Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, even amid the raging controversy over Amotekun, could unabashedly describe community policing as the best strategy in finding lasting solution to the security challenges across the country, is an acceptance of the ineptitude and failure of the force to effectively secure Nigeria.
As at present, no part of the country is adequately secure. Criminal elements are holding the entire country by the jugular, even as Nigerians continue to clamour for effective security system and strategies.
After reviewing the sorry state of the nation last week, the National Assembly raised the alarm over the worsening insecurity in different parts of the country and urged the President to sack the service chiefs. But President Buhari has dismissed their cries as mere whimper and insisted on keeping his spent forces of Service Chiefs at the expense of the security of lives of all Nigerians!
Although Amotekun has opened everybody’s eyes to the need to secure our communities and exposed the incompetence and hypocrisy of those Nigerians have entrusted their security, it also underscores the imperativeness of the much-talked about restructuring of the Nigerian nation. Apparently not wanting to be left out, the Coalition of Northern Groups has already unveiled ‘Operation Shege-Ka-Fasa,’ the Northern version of the South-West regional security initiative, ‘Operation Amotekun’ (Leopard). The South-East and North-Central governors earlier indicated plans to take a cue from their colleagues in the South- West. Such security initiative by those elected by the people to govern them would no doubt have salutary effect on the general state of security in these parts of the country.
