A day after the war
If there is a war if after the war there is a day
I will hold you in my arms
A day after the war
If there is a war if after the war there is a day
If after the war I have arms and I will make love to you with love
A day after the war if there is a war
If after the war there is a day if after the war there is love and if there is what it takes to make love.
With all the subterranean moves on issues of legislation on Amotekun, and the brief appearance of ‘shege something onething’. The eastern governors whimpered but finally agreed to community policing, and the police tinkering with the idea of a constabulary system of community policing. All has died down, although the Ekweremadu state police bill seem breathing, it seems to be faltering to a fall, all the tigers, leopards, and cheetahs are nowhere near the magnitude of the problem.
We are corona-virused on the matter of security as far as Nigeria is concerned!
So let us reason together as I share my admonition, imagine that Tiyamiyu Kazzem was your son, brother, husband or father. He was a footballer, shit down by operatives of the Special Anti Robbery Squad SARS, he was shot down because he had a dread, and he was suspected to be a yahoo boy. No evidence whatsoever, so trigger happy dudes. The assistant club captain of Remo FC is gone, Amaju Pinnick the NFA President asked the family to be strong and take solace in the life that Kazeem lived. Trust me on this, it is the end of story, no one would be held accountable. No amotekun, no shege ka fasa , no IPOB, no police, no army, no Fulani, no herdsmen or farmer. Kazeem was just a figure, and so are many Nigerians, just an insignificant number.
We are now literally begging the service chiefs to resign, asking the NSA to go, after threatening them and it did not work. We are stuck with them, even with the fight between the NSA’s office and the chief of staff to the president and the magnified story about the embarrassing crack in the presidency; it is a no show. The office of the secretary to the federal government has said the security chiefs are going nowhere. No one will overhaul the current security apparatchik; all the amotekuns put together wont change the underbelly of the rot in our security concerns.
The amotekun-ing and all that state policing has no answer to the police harassment, and extra judicial killings across board because it is a systemic problem, as no one really can attest to the sanity of the men we hand arms to. Imagine if the Federal Road Safety dudes start carry guns like their civil defense counterparts. Oh Lord save us from ill conceived, misdirected and hurriedly put together legislative tigers, leopards and cheetahs, for they will not be able to tackle the effects of illiteracy of Islamic teaching and poverty that fuels banditry in the North or the get rich mentality of the south.
Amotekun won’t be confrontational, it would be law abiding and protect all residents in Yorubaland. So what will the Police be doing? And at this point for those nodding in smiles, I am not against Amotekun, regional or state police or community policing efforts, on the contrary I am asking that the real issues be looked at, because as it stands we have not addressed it.
The amotekun security things will not change the narrative of herdsmen kill man, shoot daughter, abduct wife in Delta Community. Beggars litter the streets in Lagos, while the almajiri question begs for answers across the north. If we do not tackle resource misappropriation, we are not close to tackling the security conundrum.
What can the tigers, and leopards do when our political class refuse to bear one name, they tell you that Osinbajo is same is Osibanjo and that Ojo is same as Ojoh but we know better, Amotekun won’t solve the problem when we have governors, ministers, legislators and yet we still create Development Commission that are simply conduit pipes for legitimatized stealing.
We need to define what restructuring means, but before that we need a national reawakening that defines what the country is, because there never was a country, that way we can address a citizenry that is bitter at everything and sorry at nothing. A people that is willing to let go of a pen robber from their faith or village and burn to death a one-chance robber.
Old stories, new plots, we called it Sovereign National conference, and then we disagreed regarding where sovereignty lies, we decided to go regional, and forget the we were once there, and now the tigers want to charge, bite, devour but we have not addressed the true concerns, for example, are these not the same states that owe local government workers, that poorly and hardly pay teachers, will the members of Amotekun come from heaven or special forces that do not take bribe, talking of which reminds me how road safety started, so much pride but ultimately it fell victim to the Nigerianness of her environment of operation.
Let me end in this manner Nigeria’s security structure even on paper does not address using of diplomacy to rally allies and isolate threats. We even within ourselves lack the know how on how to marshal economic power to elicit cooperation. We long ago ceased maintaining an effective armed forces, rather we have scattered show of bravery from few officers and men.
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There are some many papers on implementing civil defense and emergency preparedness policies (including a kwashiorkored anti-terrorism legislation) but in practical terms it is zero. Is anyone responsible for ensuring the resilience and redundancy of critical infrastructure? You answer is as good as mine. Rather than using intelligence services to detect and defeat or avoid threats and espionage, and to protect classified information. We see inter agency rivalry at the expense of national spirit and national pride.
And we are told that Amotekun carries the answer, no way, amotekun is a road to be tasted but not with two legs because even the hurriedly put together legislations are still very lame to say the least. The speakers of the House of Assemblies in the south West have their work cut out, there is a load to do, Nigeria is hardly prepared for anything, like corona virus, like Boko Haram, like banditry; for amotekun to really bring any form of succor, it needs to go beyond a public relations stunt, would it be successful—Only time would tell.
*** Written by Dr. Prince Charles Dickson.
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