A house divided against itself

There is no doubt that the primary and incipient responsibility of any government remains the preservation and security of the lives and properties of its citizens, including that of legitimate foreign nationals who are domiciled within. But it is rather unfortunate that in spite of the constitutional requirement in that regard, scores of people are being killed, maimed, raped and kidnapped with impunity as if there is no government in place.

In Nigeria today, the prevailing reality approximate the Hobbesian state of nature where life is short, brutish and nasty. It may not be out of place or an exaggeration to say “Nigeria is not safe.” In a country where within a space of one month over 200 people were either killed or kidnapped while our daughters, sisters and women are being continually raped.

In such gruesome scenario, are we not already in, or very close to anarchy? It is a good omen that those in authority have begun to appreciate the negative reality of insecurity in the land; the Senate president has summoned the political will by jettisoning partisan affinity to come out and speak the truth.

Perhaps, this is the reason southwestern Nigerian governors in their wisdom found it pertinent to establish the Western Nigeria Security, Network (WNSN) code-named ‘Amotekun,’ primarily for the defence of their subjects, the imperative of the Amotekun initiative was borne out of the feeling of not being properly protected by the Federal Government of Nigeria because the scenario of banditry and kidnapping as enumerated above is also evident across the country.

However, in my opinion there is no reason why we, as Nigerians should be dissipating energy on the issue of the Amotekun security outfit, for obvious reasons as far as Amotekun will have the backing of the various state legislation as well as to synergise with the federal security agencies for monitoring and coordination, I don’t think the outfit will constitute any threat to our corporate unity.

However, my only reservation is not to allow the infiltration of firearms into wrong hands. If Amotekun is allowed to handle firearms, we should be very careful, Nigeria is highly heterogeneous and we have not managed our fault lines properly; violence is always imminent in many places across the country, therefore, allowing firearms to be controlled by non conventional security agency would do no good for Nigerians, aside this, Amotekun is not a bad idea.

It is worrisome to note that the Amotekun security initiative, as laudable as it looks, has suddenly become a subject of primordial interest rather than being viewed as a national issue, the proponents of the initiative mistook the initiatives as a regional interest, while the antagonists from the other region view the initiative with contempt, forgetting that the menace of criminality, banditry and terrorism has no boundary.

We must also appreciate the fact that any attack on the South is an attack on the North, and any attack on the Christians is an attack on the Muslims.

It is only through such mentality we can defeat acts of terrorism from our midst. We must act in unison to defeat these bad elements in our midst. Nigerians must jettison ethnicity, region and religion to fight a common enemy.

Mohammed Isa Bilal,

Plateau State