By Dayo Sobowale
In Nigeria today the in thing or buzz word to discuss is the Amotekun issue which is explosive because the learned Attorney General had dismissed the security outfit set up by the South West Governors as illegal and Nigerians, especially enlightened ones too are literally asking for the scalp of our No 1 law officer for saying the abominable or unthinkable.
I have no intention of mediating in this issue or disagreement indeed I could complicate it because I do not think it is an issue worthy of the furore it has generated. This is because Amotekun is about security and no one in the South West needs the permission of a lawyer to arrange the security of his life and property not to talk of Governors who were voted in and sworn in to protect the lives and properties of those who gave them power.
The Attorney General is not an elected leader but an appointee of an elected party just as the Governors he is mocking have appointed lawyers like him as their respective Attorneys General.
On this Amotekun issue I want to refer the AGF to the National Geographic Survival Series to show him that survival is as much a case of security as it is that of life and death. The leopard or panther chasing his prey at high speed is exerting energy optimally so that he can catch that prey and replenish its lost energy by feeding on the prey. If he misses the prey and his food he could die of hunger from exhaustion. Bandits, kidnappers, armed herdsmen have stolen, looted and raped the South West for long such that it has become weakened and enfeebled such that it does not die from starvation and exhaustion from looted and wasted energy. The Amotekun outfit is an answer by the South West governors to raise a fallen, prostrate leopard which had been hacked and enfeebled by hunger and anger and is about to die in the process of living in an unproductive and hostile environment which had always given food, succor and shelter in abundance to the Amotekun environment.
I want to illustrate the fact that Amotekun is both a survival and security matter with two international but topical issues in three nations facing the twin issues just this last week. The nations are Iran, the US and Iran. These nations are facing their own politics and governance and are evolving solutions just as the South West governors did for the survival and security of their environment.
In Iran which blundered its retaliation against the killing of General Quassim Soulemaini by the Americans by shooting down a passenger plane carrying mostly Iranians and people from four other nations, the highest authority in Iran Ayyatolah Khameini absolved the Military Islamic Revolutionary guards which made the error of blame saying the Americans were happy at the error as they were happy at the assassination of the Iranian general. Does that make sense that a military out fit can be so incompetent as to be killing its people and yet go unpunished and scot free? But then the Ayatollah and the Islamic state depends on the Revolutionary Guards for their security and survival against the rumblings and grumblings of the larger Iranian society. Surely the Ayatollah does not need the Attorney General to tell him the legality of his actions since what is at stake is a game of survival and security.
More interestingly in the US the battle has been a planned one between the law and politics in the survival game that US President Donald Trump has played so much and so far leading to his Impeachment Trial which starts next week in the Senate. Donald Trump to me is the true Amotekun of American politics in the way he has weathered the storm of opposition to his person and policies and the disgrace of Impeachment by the US House of Representatives. Yet he is hopeful of surviving impeachment in the Senate where his party is in the majority. One thing I want the Nigerian AGF to study is the dexterous way Trumps’ lawyers handle his politics and legal tussles. According to informed sources the lawyers have agreed that Trump should go on with his numerous tweets and naughtiness while they sort out the legal angle later. Unfortunately in the legal condemnation of the Amotekun out fit the AGF has not allowed the legitimate politics of Amotekun to unfold before pronouncing it dead on arrival legally. Such hasty denunciation is destabilizing and provocative to politicians whose sole aim here is to fulfill their legitimate commitment to protecting the survival and security of their people.
We round off with Russia where the cabinet of President Vladmir Putin resigned to allow him to conclude constitutional changes. His PM, Medvedev has been replaced. The constitutional changes are supposed to give more powers to Parliament and dilute the power of the president. But according to observers Putin is already protecting his relevance and power after another two terms which ends in2024 because the Russian president can run only for two terms. The Arithmetic of Putin’s security and political survival is glaring and simple – President 2001 to 2008, PM 2008 – 2012 while Medvedev was President. Now President 2016 -2024 and a weaker presidency in his absence to protect his survival and relevance in Russian power politics.
It is pertinent to point out here that Governors in the South West of Nigeria have always blazed a trail in pragmatic and developmental politics. One of them Chief Bisi Onabanjo of Ogun State on a return from a medical trip abroad was asked why he did not avail himself of the free health facility of his party. He replied pointedly and simply that life has no duplicate. The AGF should be told that the issue of Amotekun is not a legal option but a matter of life and death in a situation where security of life and property have been managed poorly in the current situation to the detriment of the security of life and property in the South Wes. Since as Ayekoto presciently noted that life has no duplicate and the people of the SW cannot preside or look aside at their own liquidation or extinction, Amotekun is the legitimate answer without any legal hindrances and obstacles.
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