Fola Ojo
Concrete-slab highwalls around homes in Nigeria no longer deter night crawlers from killing families. Bulletproof vehicles seem to have lost their potency and deterrence; they no longer stave off violent attacks from daredevil depraved minds with killer instincts. When bullets from Ak47s ring with fire and fury through moving vehicles on Nigerian highways, occupants are caught flatfooted in the snare of mauling marauders who now seem to be having a field’s day snuffing lives out of innocent Nigerians.
These horror stories are the same in all Nigerian cities. From the North to the South and far out into clefts and fissures covering anywhere designated a Nigerian territory, security therein is an abysmal failure. The South-West is now crying out because it has experienced so much gory experiences from both herdsmen from hell who shed innocent blood; and in the hands of audacious and perilous prowls who do their dirty businesses with suave assault weapons you will find only in the enclaves of modern-day lovers of terror. With sullen temerity and defying daredevilry, robbers are unleashing mayhems. Kidnappers are kidnapping. Killers are killing. And many of them get away.
Criminals freely launch out even in broad daylight with guns, bows and arrows, machetes, and swords mauling men to death unhindered. To these uncouth and ill-mannered faithful worshippers of terror, human lives are not as precious as the lives of their pet-beasts. Like the Mongols over Russia in the 13th century, assaults on the innocents are launched from all fronts and in all regions; and masterminds are walking around free to kill again. They loot and burn down our farmlands and disrupt our sweet sleep. And it’s a shame that none will defend the people.
Our beautiful country is now a kingdom where terror and horror are unleashed at will; and there seems to be no one ready and steady to hedge these ravaging criminals. None seems to be bothered much that Nigerians’ heaven-here-on-earth is being frazzled by terrorists. When criminal characters carry AK 47s and other killer weapons in free-for-all assaults on your neighbourhood, what are you supposed to do? When your neighbours’ breastfeeding wives are raped and mothers are massacred in cold blood, what message does that convey to the wise? Do you now fold your arms and believe that government got your back? No! A wise man will lock his doors, bolt his gates, and then get ready to defend himself by every means necessary.
Suddenly, the nation’s Attorney General, Abubakar Malami, smacked down a crushing sledge hammer on the hope that about 50 million people of the South-West of Nigeria can now sleep with both eyes firmly shut. Malami is sitting on a high-horse and suggesting that it is against the law to defend yourself against steamrolling rapacious buzzards. The Amotekun idea is the brainchild of the six states and traditional rulers in Yorubaland. It is to rid the territory of terrorising brigands who will not let the people sleep sweet. Heinous cases of kidnapping, killings and ritual cases among other crimes in the region in the last few years have been heart-wrenching. Amotekun is a proactive action to complement existing conventional security architecture.
We heard that the proposed security safe haven had the bold backing from Muhammadu Buhari’s Federal Government. Upon this premise, the governors swung into action. Recruitments went into high gear and security equipment purchased gulping billions of naira. Young unemployed men and women were drafted to the mission and trained to confront the menace that has confronted them without effective help from the nation’s extant conventional security platforms like the police and the army.
Did maddening Malami just wake up from anesthesia? Is he speaking on behalf of a few principalities that are developing cold feet on the security arrangement? Why grow frantically and frigidly cold over a competent complement to the existing security architecture that has gulped billions of dollars over the last 10 years but still cannot protect lives and property? Malami almost broke his larynx when he yelled: “This is unconstitutional”! But he has yet to point to any clause in the law that the arrangement has violated. I don’t have to be a lawyer to be able to read. A few provisions in the Nigerian constitution sheds some light on the discourse.
Chapter 2, Section 14 (2b) gives mandate and rights to the President and governors to provide security across the country and in their respective states.
Chapter 2, Section 20 states: “The State shall protect and improve the environment and safeguard the water, air and land, forest and wild life of Nigeria.”
Chapter 2, 20 of the Administration of Criminal Justice allows a private citizen to arrest any criminal and hand him over to the police for investigation and prosecution.
Amotekun shores up areas where the Nigerian security has woefully failed. It is a vanguard that exists for the purpose securing lives and property, because Nigeria’s security apparatus often slumbers off at the switch. Malami’s opinion is a salad-bowl of mumbo-jumbo public statement that reflects his puerility in matters pertaining to law. If the South-West security outfit is ‘unconstitutional’, why were stamps of approval given to an armed-to-the-teeth Civilian JTF agents in Yobe and Borno states by the same government? Why is Hisbah, a comparable security outfit, deemed good for Kano and Sokoto and Amotekun is not for the South-West? What is it that truly disturbs Malami about the South-West and Amotekun? This is not just an annoying double standard, it is also malarkey.
When others beefed up on securing their people with wonder-working weapons just fresh out of the manufacturer’s mill in America and Russia, it was a free-pass with no controversies or governmental roadblocks. But when the South-West woke up to say ‘enough-is-enough’ to mindless killings of their kings and queens; principalities in face masks sheepishly putting up Abubakar Malami as a foolish and frivolous front now say we have committed high crimes. Haba!
Malami must be reminded about the provisions in Section 42 (1) of the constitution that guarantee the right to freedom from discrimination. Amotekun is neither religious nor tribal. The over 50 million people who live in the South-West aren’t all originally from the region. Amotekun is probably the most secular and the most inclusive vanguard in the country because it has no religious coloration – Christians, Muslims and believers of traditional religions are represented. Malami should fret not! The modus operandi of Amotekun is a collaboration alongside the police, NSCDC and army. Amotekun is no more than the Neighbourhood Watch in Lagos, Oyo, Kano, Enugu, Rivers, and cities and regions in Nigeria. Some Nigerians believe that Malami’s impulsive action has a cabal and ethnic coloration to it. If the formation of Hisbah neither enrages him or breaks the law, if the existence of security outfits in Borno State neither makes him angry or breaks the law, why is Amotekun a pain in Malami’s neck, giving him sleepless nights?
If local men and women are enlisted in local law-enforcement assemblages, you get better results in curtailing crimes and criminalities. Police officers from Bauchi will have a harder time policing any community in Ibadan than homegrown locals. Cops from Abeokuta can’t do as topnotch a job in Ohaji as folk who were born and raised there. Nigeria needs local men and women who know the local criminals and the terrain to beef up local security. This does not, however, exclude offering employments to others who can learn the terrain over time. The Amotekun initiative may never eradicate crime; but it will drastically reduce it. Every government, including the present one in Nigeria, needs all the help it can muzzle from all citizens to achieve good governance. The Amotekun initiative is a help. It hurts only criminals.
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