Who Is Afraid Of Operation Amotekun?

By Ropo Sekoni

WHO can be genuinely afraid of Operation Amotekun in a country that developed the refrain after the outbreak of Boko Haram terrorism that security is an all-hands-on-the-deck affair? Up to the launching of Western Nigeria Security Network (coded-named Operation Amotekun) in Ibadan on January 9, the response to insecurity and terrorism in the Northeast has been that national security requires as much input from all citizens as is humanly possible.

But since the launch of Amotekun, responses from various parts of the country have been as diverse as the country’s culture. First, many speakers from the Southeast, Southsouth, and Northcentral, have congratulated the Southwest for an enviable initiative they believe can improve the country’s security in fulfilling its duty to protect the life and property of citizens. Second, representatives of Association of Northern Youths and of Miyetti Allah, the most vocal organization of cattle producers in the country, have expressed hostility about the new outfit. Third is the attorney-general’s declaration of Amotekun as an illegal outfit.

As expected, the comment of the attorney-general has turned what to the masses of the Southwest was hailed as a welcome intervention in the ineffective protection of life and limb in the region in the past one year into an illegal activity. But the light thrown on the matter by the chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum and a major actor in the planning of the security outfit: “And in the process of bringing this ( i.e. Operation Amotekun) about, the conventional security outfits were not only in the know, they actively collaborated with the South West Governors in this process  in the material in italics overleaf raises more questions about the position of the attorney-general on this matter” should have convinced the attorney-general that the outfit falls within the orbit of conventional security goals.

The focus today is about the politics of law enforcement in the country which had been a recurrent theme on this page since 2006 when this newspaper came into being. Given the preoccupation with absolute power and authority of the central government on matters of security, it is easy to understand that the attorney-general’s stance may not be about Southwest governors’ failure to consult with the central government as much as it is about the fear of any part of the federation suggesting that there are other ways to protect the life and property of citizens than what the federal government has been able to afford through its unified police force.

If the federal government is eager to shut down an organisation designed to strengthen intelligence on crime, what does it want the people of the Southwest to do? Should the region’s governors leave innocent citizens of the region at the mercy of kidnappers and bandits? What is the country or any section of it likely to gain from throwing the Southwest back into the State of Nature, which motivated the origin of state according to time-honored philosophers as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau? Is the federal government ready to ignore social contract as the thread that has held Nigeria together since the civil war?

Granted that Nigeria was for obvious reasons created for us by the British, the design of the country was made to a large extent to follow peripherally since 1946 the principle of social contract.  The transition from unitary governance to a pro-federal one was the basis of the Nigeria that demanded political independence from Britain. Is the federal government calling on citizens of the Southwest to resort to self-help in the matter of protecting the lives and property of the 50 million people resident in the region out of a total of 200 million Nigerians? Would the federal government prefer that Operation Amotekun has been designed as a secret organization or militant group that can create anxiety for citizens as Boko Haram has done for the past few years?

It is significant for the country’s political officers to remember that when in the history of civil government especially federations one level of government feels at ease in preventing subnational governments from fulfilling their social contract obligations with the citizenry, such nation-state is acting in a foolhardy manner that wise leaders ought to avoid. And if the central government in a federation does not feel worried that a section of the country loses many value-added human beings to criminals and consequently suffers a decapitated economy arising from criminal activities, how does such central government want to compete in a global market? And what measure does the current central government have to prevent subnational governments and citizens from the alienation that failure of a federation with a central police force that is already being subsidised by subnational governments can foster? It is important to note that any attempt to make citizens at the subnational level feel that their governors have no power to protect them is dangerous for national and subnational governments as well as neighboring countries.

Leaders of many of the six regions have complained since 1993 that the federation is wobbling and deserves re-structuring. When President Buhari included in his manifesto the pledge to restore the spirit of federalism, he caught the attention and trust of voters of the region in 2015 and to a large extent in 2019. Even though he no longer needs the votes of any region, he still needs to give attention to his legacy. From his own exhortations about the importance of unity and peace, it seems that he as a president is seeing things that should make any patriotic leader worry about the future of his country in the years beyond his presidency. He needs to return to promises made by his government about restoring federalism including establishment of a police system at subnational units to build trust between levels of governments in a federation.

The centralised system that developed in the last 40 years is not suitable for the new century. The country’s law enforcement is still largely like the colonial policing that felt strengthened that the model of enforcing laws through police officers that have no cultural stake in the communities of their posting is the best for the natives. It is important to remember that Britain with a unitary government at that time did not practice the form of policing it foisted on Nigeria, which our military rulers had adopted with gusto since 1966.

It is not a sign of strength for any government in modern times to resist calls for political and economic reforms. Doing so engenders mistrust and suspicion among diverse cultural communities in a federation. It makes communities to feel there are desires by some section(s) to dominate or colonise them. Such situation also creates anger and frustration that can spark instability.  For example, it is illogical and unjust to shut down a subnational effort that seeks to add value in a transparent way to the work of the current national police that is visibly unable to protect life and property in many parts of the country. It is also unfair for the same government to act as if it is right for special police units, such as Hisbah is normal in a federation that shuts down a subnational initiative to complement the central police. Nothing unsettles a federation faster than appearance of lack of fairness.

Those with eyes for history among the country’s political leaders ought to remember that nobody or government can freeze the inexorable movement of history from stagnation to change and from control to freedom. This is the character of the human race and the soul of democracy.

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