OP-ED Opinions 

Amotekun: A Good Start, Let’s Go For It, To Hell With Northerners’ Nonsense By Bayo Oluwasanmi



It bears repeating that the primary function of a government is to protect life and property of citizens. Needless to say today Nigeria is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to live. Nigerians have become inured with inundated daily headlines of horror stories and gory pictures of dismembered bodies of innocent citizens. Buhari has squandered the opportunity to tackle the important security problem with clear vision.

A president, who takes security of his people as his most important primary duty would by now roll out national strategy for security of Nigerians. I’m not talking of the usual strategy of highfalutin policy noises lumped together as campaign bumper sticker. I’m talking of a strategy – a vision of what can be accomplished and tools necessary to achieve those goals.

We need a strategy based on coordination among stakeholders and a comprehensive vision for where internal security is now, where it is headed, and the approach Buhari and the executive branch will propose to get there. It is open secret that the Nigeria Police Force is an outdated, ancient, moribund police system. The 19th century Lord Lugard police outfit cannot perform the highly demanding and sophisticated 21st century community policing.

General Muhammadu Buhari is unmoved and insensitive to all the insecurity problems in the country. He doesn’t care about lives been lost or destroyed on daily basis through violence, butchery, and decapitation of Nigerians. Buhari’s regime can no longer secure life and property of Nigerians. The regime has no answer to security questions that keep our people awake in the dead of night. It is against this background that the establishment of Amotekun security outfit by the governors of the six South-West states can be understood and appreciated.

I believe Amotekun will serve as a community policing architecture very much top-down disciplines, where command and control are not just norm, but are necessary. Amotekun will guarantee security for our people. Our people will be able to travel safely within the local, state, tribal, and territorial boundaries of the six South-West states. Our people will be able to go to farm without being killed by Fulani herdsmen terrorists. 

Our people will be safe from abductors, kidnappers, ritual killers and other savages that roam our land looking for preys. In short, Amotekun as community security policing system, will enforce laws, prevent crimes, protect the law abiding, arrest offenders, solve on-going security problems, and improve the overall security of our communities in the six South-West states.

The opposition to Amotekun by the northerners was expected. Historically, they are known to be enemies of progress. And to date, they continue to attack, deride, dismiss, and oppose any progressive and radical ideas that would bring peace, progress, and prosperity to Nigerians. For example, they opposed restructure, equitable revenue sharing formula, state police, meritocracy, inclusive government with equal representation of all ethnic groups in high visibility federal positions in federal agencies, federal bureaucracy, the army, navy, police, judiciary, EFCC, CCT, Supreme Court, and on, and on, and on.

We the Yorubas have resolved that the security of our people is paramount. The security of our people is in our hands. The security of our people is more important than the corporate membership of a failed state like Nigeria. In a word, the security of our people is non-negotiable. We don’t care how the Northerners feel about Amotekun. We don’t give a damn what they think of Amotekun. To hell with the Northerners’ nonsense!

Amotekun is a good start. Let’s go for it. Gradually we’ll free our security of our people from the centralised ragtag, clueless, inefficient, outdated, underperforming, irresponsible, and unresponsive NPF. Amotekun is here to stay… Let’s go for it!

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