Between Shege-Ka-Fasa and Amotekun

By Ayobami Abdullahi el~Africa

Sir: Much ink has been spilled, many newspapers have written editorials and crafted all manners of headlines on Operation Amotekun and Shege-Ka-Fasa. The big question is, can either be the panacea to the raging insecurity in the country?

We have Boko Haram attacks on the innocent people of northeast, herdsmen killing of the farmers, kidnapping and other forms of insecurities ravaging the entire country.

Would it not be impolitic of the government and other stakeholders to rush into a solution without constructively looking at the causes?

I say this against the background of the World Bank’s recent report that 87 per cent of the poor in the country reside in the North; the other is the well-known fact that 13 million to 14 million of our children are currently out-of-school most of them in the northern parts of Nigeria.

When a man is stricken by the blow of poverty, its stands to reason that his sense of virtue would vanish in the course of striving to survive. Striving to survive is what has resulted to level of crime, the giant constraint hindering the progress of this nation.

It is said that education has the keys to the development of any society and that he who opens a school door, closes a prison. There is need to send back to school, the over 14 million of out-of-school children if the government desires to end all forms of criminality. The North as a region must brace itself and reverse the ugly trends.

In the same vein, while the rising rate of banditry, kidnapping, abduction, human trafficking, recurring herders-farmers clashes, etc. threatens the peace, stability and even corporate existence of Nigeria, the inability of the security agencies to curb them is what has given birth to Operation Amotekun.

Be that as it may, there are fears that the bold initiative could in future be hijacked by unscrupulous politicians to unleash terror on opponents, particularly as the paymasters of the security outfit would be the governors.

Nigerians need to thoroughly interrogate the issues. How will the outfits be funded? The logistics of coordination? Supply of arms and ammunition. And the finance given the dire financial situation in some southwest states? It would certainly be better if they didn’t start what they would not be able to sustain in the long run. The danger of starting what they wouldn’t be able to sustain is that arms and ammunition given to the personnel for protection of the larger society could end up being deployed for self-help and other anti-social ends.

• Ayobami Abdullahi el~Africa, Abuja.