By E.T OKERE

The thing that immediately struck me with the nomenclature, “Western Nigeria Security Network”, a.k.a Operation Amotekun, is the part, “Western Nigeria”. Why “Western Nigeria”? Why not the appellation, currently in use: “Southwest”? The answer to this double-barrelled question can be attempted from two angles.

One, it is an inadvertent expression of the nostalgia of those good, old days when the then Western Region, made up of all the states in today’s Southwest geo-political zone, minus Lagos State, was a trail-blazer.

For example, the region, under the premiership of the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo, championed free education in the country.

The region also gave Nigeria its first television station, the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV). Western Nigeria also built the first skyscraper in the country entirely with proceeds from agriculture – the Cocoa House in Ibadan, capital of today’s Oyo State.

Today, Cocoa House, which still stands quite magnificently – due to careful maintenance – is seen as one big reminder of purposeful governance in the first republic, an attribute that also saw the Eastern Region, become the fastest growing economy in Africa.

In national politics, the people of Western Nigeria – the Yoruba – are also believed to be agenda setters for the entire country. The Yoruba political, cultural and even religious elite are the most outspoken on burning national issues.

Just a few weeks ago, the highly regarded ex-Army general, Theophilus Danjuma, charged Yoruba leaders with becoming docile and refusing to speak out on critical but worrisome national issues.

Some critics, in response to Danjuma, said to him: “talk your own” but regardless of the controversy generated by Danjuma’s remark, it is a fact that somehow, other parts of the country tend to use the “Yoruba view” as a gauge on national politics. The reason this is so is not within the scope of this essay.

It is for this reason, and which is the second angle to the response to Amotekun, that some people see the development as a signal that the people of Western Nigeria are beginning to set the pace for the much talked about political restructuring of the country.

My view, however, is that if there are those who think along that line, so be it. For me, any move, action, body language etc. that will continue to lend credence to the imperative of restructuring and, indeed, give impetus for further agitation, is welcome.

In any case, Western Nigeria – I prefer that appellation for the purpose of this article at least – leaders have, again, been the most vocal on the matter of restructuring and I believe that they will continue to ventilate on the matter directly and not under guise.

Just a few weeks ago, a prominent Western Nigeria leader, Afe Babalola, in an article canvassed, quite profoundly, for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC). Even though the issue of an SNC has been highly controversial, even vexatious, and is one which some sections of the country, especially the North, do not want to hear about, I have searched all over the places and I cannot find even a full stop published to challenge the highly regarded legal luminary and educationist on his recent call. That is a topic for another day.

Still, I would like to view Amotekun more from the angle of what its creators have clearly spelt out that it is, than that of mere conjectures: A drastic response to a drastic situation. The security situation in the country has become quite drastic and only a correspondingly radical measure can stand up to it.

For now, Amotekun should be seen for what it is: A move by the people of Western Nigeria to truly redouble their efforts at securing their territory and its people and not to continue to leave it in the hands of amorphous, unitary, ‘federal’ security architecture that has apparently failed Nigerians.

Agreed, Amotekun may be circumscribed in its operations, given that it will not have the ambience to operate like the official security agencies but apart from the sheer significance of it emergence, there can be no doubt that it will help the conventional security organs of government.

Before now, there have been in existence vigilante groups put in place by some state governments and so far, there have not been any known cases of overt conflict between them and government security agents.

If anything, their presence on the highways – even with ordinary dane guns – has always given travellers some sense of security, given, of course, the fact that most often, the so-called government security agents would be nowhere to be seen for several kilometres on a stretch.

Read Also: FG declares Amotekun illegal

On the other hand, what Nigerians are used to is the incessant clash between police and military personnel emanating from deliberate attempts to sabotage each other. Not too long ago, Nigerians witnessed the sordid event, somewhere in Taraba State, when military personnel, in an attempt to free a suspect held by the police, killed three young and promising police officers.

Which bring us to the vexed matter of the apparent dilemma over the withdrawal of military personnel from areas that are now adjudged as “peaceful” – from the point of view of some federal functionaries.

As far as I am concerned, it is a needless dilemma that only arose because the federal officials, particularly the service chiefs, who are making the proposal, are carried away by the fact that they are not as vulnerable as majority of Nigerians.

That suggestion can only come up, in the first place, because the security chiefs are intent to allot to themselves credits they have not earned. There are no places right now in the country, from Sambisa forest to Abonema that the police can exclusively man and guarantee the security of the people and their properties.

Two major issues are being raised in the course of the argument. One, that the military’s only (constitutional) duty is to protect the nation from external aggression. Two, and perhaps a corollary, that there is need to “demilitarize” the national geo-political landscape.

For me, the first argument has become hackneyed. For 60 years (since independence), that’s what we have been hearing. Pray, when shall we fight this war with external aggressors? Or, for how long shall we continue to ‘preserve’ our military in waiting for an external attack? Are we not waiting too long for this attack? Rather than reinventing the “pepper soup” theory, might we not attack one of our neighbours, so that our military does not wait for eternity to carry out its “constitutional duty”?

The Nigerian military has a very important assignment in its hand currently namely, to prevent the different sections that make up the country from going to war with themselves.

The only imminent war Nigerians should be afraid of is an internal war among themselves; and it may be inevitable if we continue to pay lip service to the continual internal aggression amongst us.

Yes, the expression, “demilitarizing the system” is theoretically attractive but in practice, it is at once escapist and hypocritical. Nigerians are already used to “army arrangements”; whether it is at the polling booths or at the check points.

They have even become used to the fact that military personnel at check points, like their police counterparts, now give “CHANGE” to motorists. Regardless of Governor Babagana Zulum’s recent encounter with some military personnel at a check point somewhere in Borno State, the average Nigerian prefers to see soldiers on the highways, at least because their presence instils more confidence than would that of the police.

Rather than the police hierarchy’s apparent haste to ‘chase’ away military personnel who ‘intruded’ into its territory, it should come up with a programme for a total reorientation of its personnel.

At the moment, the Nigeria Police lacks the capacity to handle the pervasive internal security challenges facing the country. What its personnel has merely done in to lay siege to the civil populace – along the highways, on the streets, at every corner of the country.

Yes, there is the issue of inadequate personnel – a laughable thing with millions of young people able and willing to be recruited into the force – but if nothing is done to directly re-orientate the police, any addition to its rank and file would merely mean lining the streets and highways with more gun-toting extortionists.