Restructuring will help improve security in the country — Gani Adams

National Coordinator of Odu’a People’s Congress (OPC), Chief Gani Adams, speaks on the security challenges facing the country, insisting that restructuring will greatly help to facilitate improved security. He also speaks on the involvement of his group in ridding Lagos of the deadly Badoo cultists. BOLA BADMUS presents the excerpts:

Recently the OPC was reported to have collaborated with the police in getting arrested some Badoo cultists terrorising Ikorodu. How did the group get itself involved in such exercise?

Information has been coming to us concerning the activities of the Badoo cult group for about two and half years now. Our coordinators in Ijegede, Igbogbo and Bayeku have been giving us information about what has been happening, but we realised that some highly placed personalities sent those boys to carry out such acts. We thought we cannot move in without the cooperation of the government especially the police.

If you monitor the incident that happened between Lagos and Ogun states last year regarding kidnapping in the Ikorodu and Ibafo axis, people mounted pressure on us to assist the police, but we told them that without the cooperation of the government and without an invitation from the law enforcement agencies, it will be difficult to stem high profile crimes in our society.

The issue of the Badoo cult group went out of proportion, about four weeks ago, over 18  people were killed. Perhaps, that was one of the reasons the Lagos State Police Command invited me recently that they needed the cooperation of the OPC to curb the Badoo menace.

Most of the people involved in the Badoo cult group are ritualists. They use stones and big sticks to kill their victims, after that, they remove some parts of the body, they also use white handkerchief to collect their victims’ blood. Those white handkerchiefs are taken to their godfathers.

So, when the deputy Commissioner of Police in Lagos State on Operations invited me and some leaders of Onyanbo to his office, I told him that there was need for us to invite our coordinators in Ikorodu, who would have more information to provide.

The next meeting was held on June 30, which was an enlarged one. Another meeting was held with the Commissioner of Police and it was agreed that there was need to carry out a joint operation on Saturday, July 1, 2017. That was what led to the operation which took eight hours and at the end of the day cutesy over a 100 suspects were arrested.

We went to some black spots where some cultist usually stay because we found out that cultists were usually recruited to operate as Badoo members.

They recruit by putting up vacancy and requesting for applicants to apply. By the time  you apply, you will be asked to come for interviews, you will be recruited and given some money. They also designed some measures of giving money to some people as empowerment to recruit. In some cases, they give as much as N250,000 to lure people to the cult.

So, it goes beyond what public eye can see, it is a well planned group. For now, over 100 people have been arrested and by the time the police carry out their interrogation, more revelation will be made. I have already said that without the police inviting us, we would not be involved. The reason is that there have been cases in the past, If you were not invited by the police and you go for the operation, you would blame yourself. It can be twisted against you and before you know, you would be charged for extra judicial killing and the agents of Badoo can write a petition against the OPC. But now, the law enforcement agencies are on board.

Some people have wondered what prominent indigenes of Ikorodu have been doing to arrest the situation from getting to this level?

Some prominent people in Ikorodu have tried their best, but it goes beyond them. Everyone is trying to be safe in the society. Most of the operations of the Badoo gang are usually done in undeveloped areas.

If the police do not have the support of the OPC that has structure everywhere, it would be difficult to curb crime. I am very sure that after the operation, more information will be revealed because the Ikorodu people have realised that the OPC is working with the police. Those who do not have confidence in giving the police information will give to the OPC and vice versa.

So when you talk of security, it goes beyond law enforcement agents. I have travelled to many countries in the world. Most of the intelligence reports to the security agencies in many developed countries always come from retirees and some groups who are not being paid by government. The only fear people have about our security agencies is that they believe when they supply information, they will divulge it to the criminals, who will in turn pounce on them.

After OPC operation, some of these Badoo guys must have fled out of Ikorodu but their leaving will give us more information to know their sponsors and the personalities behind the act. It is very clear that their operation is more than just being a criminal activity. From what we heard, they normally buy these blood-soaked handkerchiefs from these criminals for as high as N1million each, some even pay as high as N1.5million for each handkerchief. How can a common man afford such an amount of money? It is clear that this is being organised by some prominent people.

We need to challenge our law enforcement agents. We have seen a lot of people caught with human heads and a lot of people have ritual dens in the bush. We have never gotten the names of their godfathers or sponsors. Until the Nigeria Police and other security agencies do their investigations, name the prime suspects, take them to court and allow the media publish the information,  that is the time ritual killings will reduce in Nigeria.

Thank God for social media that is exposing lots of things now. Some people are wealthy today without any known source of income. They should be investigated. The collaboration between us and the police has yielded a lot of positive results in the areas of security, especially in the South West. People are now confident that crime rate will be reduced. It is different from the time when the police viewed OPC as its enemy, not the time that security agencies believe that anybody who is a member of OPC is its enemy. Now, the collaborative effort between OPC and the police has sent a signal. Let me state it clearly that OPC is not a security organisation. It is not like Bakassi or vigilante, but you can’t reduce the advantage of a group of over six million people who believe in using their native means to defend themselves. You cannot underrate their cooperation in reducing crime in the society.  Some of our members today assist various organisations as private security. We have some who are working as security within the group who can be more useful to the police.  We have held two meetings with the Nigeria police, we never asked them for money. In fact, we are even spending our money because the pain of our people is our pain. Any calamity that befalls our people is our own calamity too. We believe as Nigerians, anything that we can do to assist any agency, even beyond the issue of security in order to have a very organised and secured society, we will do it to the best of our knowledge.

This is not the first time you will be collaborating with the police. Recently, there is upsurge in security crisis in Lagos State especially the kidnap of some students in Epe who are yet to be rescued. In all this, what has the state government done in the area of seeking assistance from your group just as the police did?

This is the first time I will be sitting with the top hierarchy of the police; I’m talking of the state command. Most times, the support our members get isalways is at the level of DPO, which is not recognised or coordinated by us. When you are dealing with the top hierarchy of an organisation, it is quite different from dealing with ordinary members who are not leaders.

On the efforts of the state government, it is unfortunate that we have a nation that plays partisan politics with lives and properties. The first duty of any government be it at the federal, state or local government level is to ensure that lives and properties of its citizenry is secured. It is only in Nigeria that even when a government can use its political opponent to have a secured society and better governance, they will shy away from doing that. In the process, their government will have a bad image. We are not politicians, we are a non- partisan organisation.  Maybe, you should go and ask Lagos State government why they established Neighbourhood Safety Corps, recruited nothing less than 7,300 members to assist in terms of security and intelligence gathering for Lagos State without consulting us or even asking us to give them 10 persons.

In Lagos State today, about 70 to 80 per cent of the streets are being secured by OPC members as private guards. Even some banks today recruit OPC members and sew security uniforms for them in order to secure their banks. Why should Lagos State make that recruitment without injecting OPC members into it? Most of the people they recruited are members of their party who have no knowledge about security and who cannot confront ordinary machete, not to talk of gun.

Assuming they do the right thing, among the 7,000 they recruited, 300 will come from Ikorodu. Ikorodu Neighbourhood Corps would have confronted these Badoo cultists. These are people they bought over 100 brand new vehicles for from the money that was removed from the  Lagos State Security Trust Fund which many corporate organisations and individuals contributed to. It is unfortunate, but we are not ruffled, we are being funded by God, we are being funded by our ancestors.

There is an adage in Yoruba, that says Igbekele eniyan asan ni, that is to say confidence in human being is vain. So, we do what we are doing for Nigerians, we do what we are doing for the Yoruba race, we don’t depend on any personality or government and we are doing it with joy, because what Yoruba love is recognition. This is because when you recognise a Yoruba man, he will be happy to work with you and help you.