•Why does secrecy surround a strange ‘task force’ doing drills on Lagos roads?
TO start with, there is no novelty about uniformed agencies devoted to specific functions. Lagos State has its own LASTMA. Ogun has its own TRACE (both are traffic management agencies). Osun has its O’YES volunteer corps, while Oyo’s equivalent of O’YES is YES’O.
All these uniformed agencies are products of legislation and their entries were well publicised. Indeed, Osun gained so much mileage from its O’YES (Osun Youth Employment Scheme) that it has since moved that other states copy the model. Even at the federal level, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, founded in Lagos in May 1967, at the approach of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), has continued to render service according to its enabling statutes.
Which is why it is highly surprising that a new para-military unit would hit the streets of Lagos with a loud silence, clothed in a web of secrecy — until alarmed citizens started raising queries.
Even now, the queries have not been satisfactorily answered. First, the task force was dabbed the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) Task Force. But Oladipo Fagbamila, FERMA’s South West 2 coordinator, entered a disclaimer, insisting FERMA had no link with the mystery task force. To reinforce his disavowal, he disclosed that FERMA had written both Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, as well as the AIG for Zone 2 (comprising Lagos and Ogun states) and Umar Manko, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, on the matter.
The closest to identifying the task force’s identity was a reported informal inscription, on the wall of its Lagos office, of “The Presidency’s Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme, Federal Task Force.” Even then, this was a function of a reporter’s leg work, and not any formal announcement. If media accounts are to be believed, it would appear that Governor Fashola himself was at sea, as to the true identity of this “Federal Task Force”.
The question is: why all the mystery? Is there anything sinister about a sudden appearance of a body of youths, clad in black and doing drills? Though an unnamed source from the body claimed the Lagos State Police Command was aware of their activities, Ngozi Braide, spokeswoman for the command, claimed ignorance about any such activities but nevertheless promised to further investigate. Why all the mystery?
It is no bad idea if SURE-P is investing saved fuel subsidy in youth empowerment and jobs. As agency spending the money, it also reserves the right to deploy the beneficiary youths to areas to which it feels they are most needed — in this case, controlling traffic on federal roads nationwide. That may be legitimate, though not a few would question its wisdom, since there is already a Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) statutorily charged with such chores.
But what is absolutely unacceptable is the secrecy that has surrounded the advent. With barely a year to the 2015 general elections, such emergence by ambuscade has led to ugly speculations that the “task force” may be glorified thugs, with the sinister motive of fiddling the polls. Besides, under what legal framework is the new “task force” coming on board? Can a minister just wake up and create any such quasi-security outfit?
To build confidence that its motive is noble and pure, the Federal Government agency responsible for the task force should come clean and duly inform the public about its existence. That way, it would put paid to suppositions that the basis of the task force’s emergence is sinister; and that it is set to compound, rather than improve, the already parlous security situation nationwide.
