The Pan Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has decried the level into which insecurity in Nigeria has fallen.
In a Press Release signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, Afenifere said that the kidnapping of seven people around Isara Remo on Lagos/Ibadan Expressway on Sunday, January 17, 2022, was another evidence that governments in Nigeria have failed in their primary duties of providing security and welfare for the people.
Ajayi in the release recalled that on January, 8, 2022, some people were reportedly kidnapped at Onigaari Village on the same Lagos/Ibadan Expressway just as some travellers, including a popular actress, narrowly escaped being kidnapped on the same road last Saturday.
Reports had it that some displaced terrorists in the northern part of the country led by one Belo Turji are making incursion into Yorubaland in the western part of Nigeria.
“We recall the incessant kidnapping of, and attacks on, innocent people in Ondo, Ogun, Osun and Ekiti States. We also recall the sacking of certain villages in Imeko area of Ogun State last week.
These are unacceptable and must be stopped forthwith by all means.
The lamentations by Governors of Niger, Zamfara, Benue, Nassarawa, Borno, Kaduna, Sokoto and Katsina States on how terrorists seem to be dictating the pace in their areas ought to serve as a wake-up call for the governments and the security agencies. Unfortunately, responses to the lamentations have not shown that the federal authorities appreciate the enormity of the challenge.
Afenifere acknowledged that President Muhammadu Buhari seems to be aware of the security situation going by his recent expressions on the issue. For instance, the President ordered for a ‘robust’ military intervention in the wake of terrorists’ take-over’ of some local government areas in Niger State just as he asked Nigerians to put their prayers for security before God. The latter he said in a message delivered on his behalf when Governor Ganduje of Kano State hosted the head of Tijanniyah organisation world-wide in Kano last week.
According to Afenifere, several ‘orders’ have been given by Mr President in the recent past just as Nigerians never stopped praying.
But it looks as if the more orders are given and the more prayers are said, the worse our security situation becomes.
“This clearly shown that the appropriate panacea is not being applied to the scourge. And until this is done, the situation may be getting worse each passing day.”
Afenifere lamented that the government’s approach to the issue does not indicate that it grasps the enormity of the problem hence its treating the insecurity situation as though it were a circus.
As part of the immediate solutions to the problem, Ajayi submitted that the doctrine of necessity be invoked so that the aspect of the Constitution that makes the handling of security in the country almost exclusive to the federal government would be relaxed.
This is the time that States and local government councils must be legally allowed to have their own security agencies. Such States and local government security agencies must be fully equipped and be allowed to have the powers to investigate and prosecute accordingly.
Also, States’ laws on security, including anti-open grazing laws, must be allowed to be effectively enforced.
Finally, Ajayi, the Afenifere spokesman, said that no matter the stride President Buhari makes on the Nigeria project, the worsening security and economic conditions in the country would rubbish his efforts and ultimate achievements.
It is therefore incumbent on the President to allow State Police, strengthen the military with equipment and right motivation, prevail on the Attorney General to allow rule of law to operate without fear or favour, stop nepostic justice, enable the military to mop-up too much weapons in the hands of unauthorised persons and promptly convene a meeting of ethnic nationalities and interest groups. Such a meeting should be to return the country to a true Federation with perhaps a parliamentary system of government.
Afenifere spokesman asserted that in the above suggestions lie the solutions to the security and economic problems Nigeria is facing presently.
