By Omoniyi Salaudeen
The Director General of the Department of State Security (DSS), Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, at a recent stakeholders’ meeting suggested the idea of empowering communities with some armaments to create the first line of defence in the event of bandits’ attack. In this interview, General Ishola Williams (rtd) dismissed the proposal as an invitation to anarchy.
The Director General of DSS, Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, recently made a proposal seeking for a policy review that would allow communities to bear arms for self-defence. Do you subscribe to such idea?
He is talking nonsense. It appears he is not living in this country. Every state in the country, especially in the North has come under one vigilante group or the other created by the government even though they refused to accept community policing like Amotekun. The Northern governors refused even when their people are being killed by the day. The Southeast governors too are still dilly dallying over it although there is a semblance of Amotekun in one of the states. Besides, the DSS, the police and the military have an intelligence system. So, what are these security agencies doing for asking that communities should be allowed to carry arms? That is an invitation for anarchy. Does he know how many illegal guns people have in their possession in this country? How did they come in? Is it not the job of the DSS to make sure they don’t come in? Are they succeeding in checking arm proliferation? Nigeria has never held anybody responsible for the security situation we have in this country, that is why the man is talking crass. When terrorists want to collect money, they talk to the village heads. Many Emirs in the North have been arrested for colluding with bandits, armed robbers and terrorists. You need to ask: Who are the people attacking the communities? If communities work with community policing, 90 per cent of the problems we have in this country will be solved.
Could you clarify the difference between community-policing the police command has been preaching and community policing in the mould of security outfit like Amotekun in the Southwest?
What the police are trying to do is to keep their job. The Inspector General of Police wants to control everything in Nigeria. A situation where someone will sit in Abuja central command and control the security situation in every part of the country is no long workable. It is no longer fashionable anywhere in the world. The governor is the Chief Security Officer of the State, but he has no enforcement powers. When we create community policing, we give the governors and local government chairmen the power to enforce state and local government laws. That way, they will be able to prevent crimes and reduce interstate criminal activities. If they need help, they will call on Crime Intelligence and Criminal Investigation Department for intervention. Under community policing, the national police will be broken down into three parts: Crime intelligence and Criminal investigation Department, Mobile Police and central police where the Inspector General will be responsible for setting standard and evaluating standard of state police. Most of the state governors have already accepted state police. What is left is for the National Assembly to enact a law that supports state police and to also reorganize the police along that line. We don’t need national police at the state and community levels. What we need is Crime intelligence and Criminal Investigation and Mobile Police.
Gen Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) recently launched a book where he admitted responsibility for the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential election won by the late MKO Abiola and apologised to Nigerians. What in your perspective is the import of that admission of guilt 32 years after?
Since he (Babangida) has apologized, he also needs to apologise to Prof Humphrey Nwosu and his family. He said in his book that as the Chairman of the electoral commission, he struggled in every way to make sure that the election was not cancelled. They need to give him posthumous national honour, compensate his family and give him any other thing that he was entitled to.
Review of electoral act has become a routine exercise in the National Assembly. Yet, electoral process is not perfect. For how long will the country continue to carry out review exercise?
There are two things there. One, the members of the National Assembly are protecting their personal interests and they will do anything to make sure that whatever will prevent them or their parties from being elected is not included in any amendment. Secondly, there is a lack of integrity in the system.
What are your thoughts about the ongoing crisis in Rivers State?
The Supreme Court ruled that local government elections should be cancelled, and that the Federal Government should stop releasing allocation to the state until they return to the status quo. When Tinubu was the governor of Lagos State, he took former President Olusegun Obasanjo to court for stopping local government allocation and he won. The Supreme Court ruled that Obasanjo had no right to withhold local government allocation. The same Supreme Court has thrown away that judgment and come up with a new one. We have integrity problem in Nigeria and corruption is creating problem for us. The confusion in Rivers State is the creation of judiciary. And it is the fault of all these lawyers. The lawyers make a lot of money for creating this confusion. A lawyer is the prosecutor, a lawyer is the Attorney General of the Federation, a lawyer also becomes a judge. The legal profession is responsible for the crisis we are seeing in Rivers State. There is a complete lack of integrity in the judicial system.
How do you see the perceived fear that Nigeria might be gradually turned into a one-party state especially with the crisis bedeviling the opposition parties?
There are no political parties in Nigeria. We only have groups or association of people devoid of ideology. That is why politicians move freely from one party to another. Very soon, you will begin to see many of them forming alliances and carrying money around. How can you imagine a Wike who claims to be a member of the PDP working for APC-led government? Yet, he is there creating crisis in the PDP. That is an indication that there are no political parties in Nigeria.