Recently, the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, said at an event that he was waiting for the Federal Government to approve the creation of state police. This happened days after the abduction of teachers and pupils from two schools in the state. His comment came at a time I had been wondering what happened to the Amotekun Corps, the state-owned security outfit. At the time Amotekun was created years back, I stated a few things on this page. One of them was that I hoped Amotekun wouldn’t go the way of most government agencies after they were created. I also expressed the hope that Amotekun’s personnel, like those of other security agencies, wouldn’t start seeking to be posted to only towns because they didn’t want to go to rural settings.
I made this observation at the time because some of the problems, such as kidnapping, which made South-West governors seek the FG’s permission to create Amotekun, were occurring in towns and rural areas. I had hoped that with the creation of Amotekun, attention would be paid to rural settings in particular. Yet, the latest highly publicised abduction in Oyo State happened in a remote area with little security presence. And it happened in the manner the nation already knew so well – dozens of gunmen rode motorcycles across a long distance, and no security agency intercepted them. I asked after the attack: if the police weren’t present, was it that Amotekun, too, didn’t have any presence in the community?
It’s concerning that neither the police nor Amotekun was aware of the movement of a sizeable number of gunmen on motorcycles who travelled to schools where they abducted dozens of pupils and rode away with them. This situation speaks to one of the lapses in the nation’s security architecture, of which I’ve written for several years. Two, it speaks to the lack of a proactive approach and the general lack of preparedness of the security agencies in Oyo State. The government is at the centre of both. Here, I won’t focus on FG-owned security outfits because of the operational limitations which I’ve written about over the years. I am focusing on sub-national units and their needed contribution to security.
There was a phase when we all agreed that state governments couldn’t do much because the FG had complete control of the security apparatus. Then another phase came when state governments created security outfits. Between, there’s a traditional local security arrangement by which communities used to look out for themselves. The LGAs can operationalise this. They can’t do this effectively because state governments have disempowered them financially. Having done this, state governors turn to the FG to provide security even in the remotest villages. I was probably the first columnist to point out this contradiction when, pre-2023, past state governors in Benue and Plateau states were blaming everyone else but themselves over insecurity. Meanwhile, I celebrated it here when the South-West sent a traditional ruler to the immediate past President, who graciously approved the creation of Amotekun. That was the time the South-West should have taken maximum advantage of the opportunity created to set up the best security apparatus they could. For in the years that followed its creation, there were crimes in the South-West that made me ask on this page, ‘Where was Amotekun?’ I suggested that the Corps should be further empowered to meet the new challenges.
Lately, opposition parties have accused the Oyo State governor of not paying needed attention to Amotekun and that he was even reluctant about its creation. Whichever, I’ve never been more disappointed about anything in the southwest than how the latest abduction was allowed to take place in Oyo State. I shall explain the reason. While I was growing up, my earliest socialisation with regard to governance, especially, followed the pattern taught in political science. Kids are socialised first through their parents or guardians. Kids learn from what parents say, and consequently, their own ideas of governance tend to be formed accordingly. As a kid, my uncle used to say something like, “Yorubaland, where the best of brains and wisdom could be found”. He would say this in relation to any issue, from governance, education, the arts, etc. I believed him, so I was ever expecting that Yorubaland, with its brilliant minds, should always come up with the best in governance or policies.
Has this been the case, considering the manner in which political leaders in the southwest watched as the insecurity situation in neighbouring northern states was eventually repeated in their own territory? Do we mean that, with what was witnessed beyond the southwest borders recently, isolated and vulnerable communities were still left unattended in Oyo State? No one in political leadership thought of ensuring that surveillance drones were deployed to monitor at least unusually large movements of gunmen on motorcycles, the well-known mode of operation of these criminals. The Oyo State government didn’t think it appropriate, as a proactive measure, to monitor situations in far-flung parts of the state using technology? Oyo’s political leadership took no preventive security measures while they waited for state police to be created.
Having followed closely and written on insecurity issues for over a decade, I think the stage of giving excuses that only the FG controls the security apparatus has passed. It has passed because the FG allows states to create paramilitary entities, and as such, I expect any state to have taken full advantage of this.
Gombe State in the northeast, for instance, enjoys relative peace because of the local security arrangement made by the state government. I’ve travelled to remote parts of Gombe where I interact with local operatives that the state government weaves into the general security network. No suspicious element shows up in town; no large movement of gunmen on motorcycles can happen anywhere without local security operatives noticing them.
As for the need to take firm local action that either prevents or apprehends criminals rather than pointing accusing fingers, I’ve stated this for years to the political leadership in Plateau and Benue states. Actions that can have far-reaching effects regarding local arrangements to tackle insecurity ought to be taken by state governors, but most don’t appear keen. Instead, everyone points at the FG and the ethnic groups to which criminals belong, an approach that can’t ever attract applause from me. Let’s think it through. State governments set up paramilitary entities that attend to road and traffic matters, religious issues, environmental sanitation, etc. They take responsibility for those. But for insecurity, they blame the FG while looking away from their own contributions, such as withholding LGA funds that could have assisted in providing effective localised security. Moreover, state governments announce billions of naira expended on logistics for FG-owned security formations in their states. Often, they procure vehicles, and in the case of one state, boats and a helicopter were donated to FG’s security entities. I noted on this page how one state governor complained that the state-of-the-art security boat it donated was taken away from the state.
I’ve asked here why state governors don’t deploy such investments in empowering their own security entities, which they can control. Why is it that South-West governors don’t expend similar energy on developing Amotekun and putting them in remote and vulnerable communities? With the bill in the National Assembly, as well as the constitutional, administrative, and governance processes that need to be completed, my assessment is that it may take at least one year before the state police will be effectively operational. Will South-West governors watch vulnerable communities and do nothing till then? In the recent past, I’ve stated here that any state that can’t effectively utilise the paramilitary outfits they have now won’t manage state police well when they eventually have it. I still stand by my assertion, because I believe what is to be done regarding local security is well-known to all. Why it’s not being done is the question we should all ask.
To me, there is the issue of systemic and attitudinal problems here. If more men, intelligence, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other appropriate logistics aren’t given to Amotekun personnel now, a similar situation will happen when state police arrive. If state governments don’t take the lives and property of citizens seriously now, they won’t take them seriously when state police are created. With the state police, lives and properties still won’t be effectively secured. And as LGAs are financially hampered by state governors from making the needed grassroots contributions to security now, so will state police be hampered. By then, we can all expect some other exotic excuses for non-performance to be given at the subnational level by political leaderships that haven’t maximised the strength of Amotekun. While Makinde awaits state police, I’m convinced he has the local resources he needs to better secure the lives and property of Oyo State citizens. He should therefore empower Amotekun and deploy them appropriately.