Omoniyi Salaudeen and Daniel Kanu
The Federal Government must see the new emerging regional security outfits as a wakeup call to the inevitability of restructuring of the country to avert the looming anarchy that is lurking.
This was the view expressed by some prominent leaders of thought across the ethnic divides who spoke with Sunday Sun on the renewed agitation for regional security outfits to tackle insecurity in the country. The six governors of the Southwest had recently launched Amotekun to confront the threats of armed banditry, kidnapping as well as herdsmen attacks on innocent citizen, which triggered people’s agitation for the formation of similar outfits in other regions.
An elder statesman and leader of the Afenifere, Ayo Adebanjo, reacting to the new trend in an interview with Sunday Sun, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to see the emergence of regional security outfits as a remind of the urgent need to heel the call for restructuring of the country.
“Emergence of regional security outfit is only showing that restructuring is inevitable because regional security outfit is a component part of restructuring. People are adopting the regional outfit because Buhari stubbornly refused to do it. It is a way of telling the government that restructuring is inevitable. It has showed them unmistakably the inevitability of restructuring. Unless they restructure this country, there will be no peace; there will be no security for us,” he said.
Asked to comment on the establishment of Operation Shege Ka Fasa by the some North youths as in readiness for confrontation with Amotekun, he fumed, saying “anytime we are discussing, I detest hearing people say something coming from the North.
“We are talking of what we want, if anybody holds a contrary view, it is his own business. If feel insulted when anybody says the North is this, the North is that. Is the North ruler of the country? Is it not a component part of the country as we are also a component part? If we have to stay together, we must agree on how to stay together. If the British had not amalgamated us, all this nonsense wouldn’t have happened. Buhari is not more intelligent, more Fulani than Sadauna of Sokoto who agreed to this restructuring. What we did at independence is not different from what we are asking for. If the North does not agree, then we get out of the federation. Nobody can force anybody to be in the union.”
A former governor of the old Anambra State and a respected opinion leader in the Southeast, Dr Chukwuemeka Ezeife, also lending credence to Adebanjo’s position, stressed the need for emergency restructuring to halt the gradual drifting of the country to anarchy and eventual possible breakup.
His words: “I want to make it clear that this regional security is nothing, but restructuring we are asking for. If they leave it to go anyway people like, it will become anarchical. The Northern one, for example, is just a fast reaction to the Yoruba one (Amotekun) and the governors of the North are not aware of it. I think the government can make hast and declare emergency restructuring so that it can take us off from this individual action which can lead us to crisis. We in the East want our own; we want to do it the way Yoruba have done their own.
“The system we have now, with justice collapsing everywhere, with politics becoming the Tsunami of Nigeria, this gem of a country which God gave us is being threatened. Those who love Nigeria must beg this government to take action now at the national level to work out an emergency restructuring.
“Restructuring will not mean that any level of government will starve of fund. We will work on how to develop funding for every level of government. Oil money will continue to go around until we have an effective substitute.
“All good Nigerians, all those who want Nigeria to make progress should be interested in one thing. That one thing is emergency restructuring of Nigeria, where we will go back to regional or zonal government through federal system. I made this point a few days ago that people who are confusing restructuring with resource control are leading us to a breakup. No good Nigerian can imagine resources being dried up to those regions that have no oil. There must be at least 10 years before effect of restructuring affects resources and resource sharing.”
Also Senator Rufai Hanga while describing the emerging outfits as a welcome development, warned that it could lead to anarchy, if not properly handled, accusing the government of incompetence.
His words: “Nigeria is tending towards chaos. Even though Southwest is doing it in good fate, the incompetence of this government will turn it to something else. If the government handles it well, it will be good for the country. It is better to prevent attack than to defend. What they are doing to protect themselves from the looming attacks by the bandits and hooligans, rather than defending themselves after the attack is okay. It is done in good fate. That is my belief. But the government is not handling it well so much that it’s triggering some suspicions from other sections of the country where they are now agitating for their own. That may not augur well for the country. Unless government handles the situation with maturity, there will be chaos.
According to him, the formation of regional outfits is a vote of no confidence in the police, adding that people have lost confidence in the police.
“I heard that a particular outfit has approached the IG of police for permission for gun license. If they are able to secure guns and the police are also holding gun, certainly, people will want to arm themselves legally or illegally. And that will create chaos. Nobody knows what will be the end of what is happening in the country. People are not happy with what is happening and they may take laws into their hands,” he warned.
Hanga described Shege Ka Fasa as a confrontation to Amotekun initiative.
He said: “What they are saying is come, we are ready for you. That is a serious threat to the unity of the country. If not, they would have applied formally like the Southwest did. Unless government starts to do something now, it will trigger a serious violence. That was the danger the Northern Elders saw before they made the statement they made, and the youths are abusing them now.”
One time Minister of Transport, Ebenezer Babatope, own his own part, said that the security of Nigeria lies with the emerging regional security outfits.
“Let us leave restructuring apart, but believe me, the salvation of Nigeria now lies in these regional security outfits that are emerging. If it leads to restructuring of the country, so be it. We are not calling for the breakup of the country; we are calling for the unity of the country. These regional security groupings will help us tremendously. Amotekun is a saviour. It is a nationalistic and patriotic device not only to defend the interest of the Yoruba people, but also to defend the corporate existence of Nigeria as one and indivisible entity. Imagine what is happening now. People are being killed left, right and centre.
He advised those behind Operation Shege Ka Fasa to put the unity of the country above sectional interest. “Those young men who set up Shege Ka Fasa should know that the unity of the country is more important than any other consideration. The unity of Nigeria cannot be compromised. Buhari should use the opportunity of these grouping to strengthen the unity of Nigeria. If we miss the opportunity, we shall be sorry for ourselves,” he posited.
Dr Sylvan Ebigwei, former president of Aka-Ikenga, an Igbo intellectual think-tank, said that the development was a welcome initiative and a solution to salvage the present situation of threat to lives of different ethnic groups.
He described the emerging scenario as a backdoor to restructuring of the country, blaming the trend on the failure of the government to secure lives and property of the people.
He said: “People have taken to self-defence since the Federal Government has failed to defend them. You can see that nowhere is spared from the spate of insecurity swirling across the country. It is good for the country, it’s restructuring through the backdoor, it’s a step towards regional police. The security of the nation is in the hands of one ethnic group, so other groups are no longer safe with what is on the ground, as their lives are under serious threat.
“My fear is that at the end of the day, it might backfire because politicians will politicize it and use it to hunt their political enemies or opponents, real or imagined. When you look at the past, it was sometimes used to intimidate, harass, or hunt the opposition or perceived enemies. The truth is that the originators mean well for their own people for establishing it, but what will happen eventually is that the political forces will hijack it and use it against opponents.
“Traditional rulers themselves may also be using it against their subjects who do not obey their instructions whether good or bad. So, it will become a willing tool to hunt enemies, real or imagined.”
Yerima Shettima, national president, Arewa Youths Consultative Forum, also threw his weight behind the clamour for restructuring Nigeria to give each region a sense of belonging.
“The truth is that we are not practicing true federalism nor enjoying good governance. So, what we are witnessing at the moment becomes inevitable,” he said.
Also, Comrade Joseph Evah, national coordinator, Ijaw Monitoring Group (IMG), insisted that the country could not continue with the present political structure.
He said: “It will be proper for every region to come up with security outfit because of the situation we find ourselves. There is an urgent need to re-organise the countries security architecture, as the current structure has not been able to protect the lives and property of Nigerians. The truth is that security architecture is faulty.
“The governors of the Southwest states have decided to take the destiny of their people in their own hands. They have decided to take the bull by the horns and confront the monster head-on by forming their security network code-named Operation Amotekun.
“We must salute them. They have always been pacesetters. It is this unitary system that we are operating which we are calling federalism that is deceiving us. In real fact, we are operating a unitary system. It is this system that we are operating that has actually affected the development of the Southwest. If we had been practicing 1953, the 1960 constitution on regionalism, the Southwest would have developed more just like other regions would have joined in the development. By now, Southwest would have been competing with Malaysia.
“When the Southwest adopted Amotekun and some of our reactionary forces tried to blackmail them, we kicked against it and told them they cannot stop it. I am happy with the Southwest politicians like Fayemi and others who despite the fact that they belong to the APC government, they went ahead. Knowing the reality on the ground, they refused to succumb to the blackmail. What they did is the way to go and this is what I am telling our coward politicians from the South-south, especially the governors to also act.”