26012020 - How bad an example was set in Zamfara

PAGE 8—SUNDAY VANGUARD, JANUARY 26, 2020
Mr Yinka Odumakin,
spokesperson for
Afenifere, says those who
are afraid of Amotekun are
criminals.
Now that it has been decided that
the state Houses of Assembly
should enact laws to legalise
Amotekun, you think that settles
the matter?
They will do it definitely but it doesn’t
settle the matter because when you
listen to some of our compatriots,
even if you are talking about Hisbah,
these are sectional laws; not
everyone who lives in Kano and
everywhere you have Sharia is a
Muslim. We are talking about
Amotekun to protect Yoruba,
Hausa, Igbo, Ijaw, anyone
living inside South-West.
You say some people are
afraid; those who are
afraid are criminals in
the South-West. If you
are not a criminal,
you have nothing to
be afraid about
Amotekun. Now,
one comrade
was raising
questions
about general
establishment,
t h o s e
questions
a r e
unfortunate because there is nobody
who will say he is not aware of the
security challenge we are facing in
the South-West for several months
now. Some days ago, Pa Fasoranti
was lamenting that the Federal
Government has stopped
investigation into the killing of his
daughter, six months after, not even
one word from the police. Women
are being raped, people are being
kidnapped; ransoms are being paid
all over the place. In the midst of all
these, our governors said we are in
an emergency, let us have Amotekun.
The federal authorities have failed
us. Some three months ago, I went
to see Baba Alaafin of Oyo and he
was telling me that when Oyo was
becoming ungovernable, he set up a
Insecurity and the move to stem
it using apparatus other than the
one controlled by the Federal
Government has been an issue.
Where do you stand?
Simply because the police aren’t
doing what they are supposed to do
doesn’t mean you have to create
another police. Certain initiatives
have been taken by some states to
complement the work of the police.
I know some states where bodies
have been created to help in traffic
control and I know of states where
bodies have been established to
detect and prevent crime. Our
expectation is that the Federal
Government should take a greater
initiative by increasing the number
of policemen, train them and equip
them to do the job.
State governments are investing
a lot in the police because of the
inadequacy in equipment and
personnel. Only last week after a
meeting with his security chiefs,
President Buhari restated his
belief in community policing. So
why do we have furore over
Amotekun, a regional security
outfit just created by South-West
governors, since the goal of
everyone is security in the face of
increasing banditry, kidnapping
among other crimes in the land?
Community policing has been
with us for quite some time. But the
truth of the matter is that the number
of policemen we have and the
training is insufficient. Cairo, the
Egyptian capital alone, has about
one million security men tackling
crime there. And Egypt is about half
the population of Nigeria. We have
over 200 million people in this
country and the number of
policemen we have is in the range of
300, 000, 400, 000. This is grossly
insufficient to deal with the security
situation on the ground.
Why do we have furore over
Amotekun?
Police are an essential part of our
security network. This is an outfit that
can be utilised for the good or bad.
And our position is that it should not
be used for the bad purpose. And to
allay the peoples’ fear, any
organisation to be used for policing
should be established within the
•Odumakin
vigilante group which arrested
several herdsmen, there were even
one of them who removed someone’s
genital, they were caught and the
police could not charge anyone of
them to court. It is in the midst of this
situation that our governor had to
do something. And what they have
done, they have not violated any law.
They said security is on exclusive list;
that is a lie from the pit of hell.
Security is not on any list. As an
individual, you can get a security
guard for your house.
I think there is a need for people
to understand that what is on
exclusive list is defence and not
prism of the law. The issue in the
South-West has been that they are not
happy with what is happening and
therefore they should put together an
outfit to protect lives and property.
But you have to put into
consideration the procedure of
establishing such an outfit. Let me
give you a typical example of Kano
State. When the state found that the
number of policemen was not
sufficient to meet its security needs,
they decided to establish Hisbah. And
when they did that, they went through
all the processes that were required.
A law was made within the state by
the Kano House of Assembly to set
up the outfit, and the law was even
further amended. This was
challenged by the Federal
Government thinking the state was
now creating an outfit to do the
AMOTEKUN:
Whether exclusive or concurrent,
security is not on any list
security. Having
said that, I think
one of the issues
that have come
up on Amotekun
is that people do
not understand
the operational
guidelines of the
security outfit...
There is
nothing that
—Odumakin
Amotekun is
doing than to
secure lives and
property, to fill the gap that the police
cannot fill. Police are just on the
• Says those who
are afraid of outfit
are criminals
Someone said
there was a time
that the OPC in
the South-West
was used against
Igbo traders living
in the zone. I am
not aware of any
time the OPC
went after Igbo
traders in Lagos
police work. But the condition was
that Hisbah was not going to carry
arms. They were to help the police in
intelligence gathering and detecting
crime. Even then the Federal
Government and the Inspector
General of Police were not happy with
it. And the case went to the Supreme
Court and it was decided by the apex
court that Hisbah was legal. But in
the case of the South-West governors’
initiative, they have put together a
security outfit that has no backing of
the law, nobody knows whether they
are going to carry arms or not
because they say they are going to
fight herdsmen and herdsmen,
according to them, carry guns. So
within this context, people that may
be targeted will entertain fear.
History is very important. You will
recall that when the Oodua Peoples’
Congress (OPC), led by Gani Adams,
was allowed to operate, what did
they do? Police work. At the end of
the day, what happened? They
started chasing Igbo traders in
Lagos. Anything that
did not align with
what they wanted, they
unleashed terror,
highways, stopping
vehicles; Amotekun
members have the capacity
to go into the forest, to know
what is going on there and
get information.
The last time the
National Assembly tried to
amend the Constitution in
favour of policing across
the country but that didn’t
succeed. And governors
should be able to call a
security meeting with the
President and they can talk
about all these things and
address them frontally. But
that hasn’t happened. How
do we know that our
leaders are not playing
politics with all of these
things?
What operates in Nigeria
at the moment is command
and control. Someone said there was
a time that the OPC in the South-
Hisbah legal, Amotekun illegal
—Sufi, former Senior Lecturer, Bayero University
•Dr Sani Sufi
Dr Sani Sufi, a former Commissioner for Education in Kano State and
one time Senior Lecturer at Bayero University, Kano, explains why
Hisbah, the Sharia police, is legal and Amotekun illegal.
harassing people.
Fears are always
there. What is to be
there is to allay the
fears, reassure the
people that the goal is
to ensure security for
everyone. People say
we should not forget
the primary reason
for establishing such
outfit. There have
also been places
where the state had a
legal framework and
there was a tussle
with some
stakeholders and
the federal
authorities. In
Benue for instance,
the state
government made
the Anti-grazing
Law and there was
a problem with it.
Some people said
the law was
discriminatory
whereas the state
government said it
was to protect
everyone in the
state. So is the law
really the problem
or the fears of the
people?
Both! We are living
within the context of
a sovereign nation.
And the Constitution
is the guiding
document. Once you do something
outside of the Constitution, certainly
Once you allow
ethnic bigots to
take over the
responsibility of
the constituted
authority, we
may be in
danger of
creating a
monster that
will be difficult
to control
West was used against Igbo traders
living in the zone. I am not aware of
any time the OPC went after Igbo
traders in Lagos. The only time there
was a problem between OPC and the
Hausa community in Lagos, it was
under President Obasanjo and the
Hausa were the aggressors. OPC
merely acted in self self-defence. But
you know what Obasanjo did? He
arrested Gani Adams and the late
Frederick Faseun and took them to
Abuja. I went to see them in Kuje
Prison. Obasanjo didn’t address any
Hausa man even if they were the
aggressors. What Obasanjo was
trying to do was that as President of
Yoruba extraction he was not taking
sides with the Yoruba.
On pro-Amotekun protests, they
held in all the South-West state
capitals but not in Lagos. Are all
the governors united on the issue
of Amotekun?
There is no division at all. All these
little protests that you see here and
there are just the beginning of this
matter. The South-West has made it
clear that nobody is going to stop us
from protecting ourselves. We are not
against anybody. The young people
who protested, that is their own way
of saying there is no going back on
Amotekun. Amotekun is the only way
to protect ourselves; we don’t have
history of harassment against
anyone. Live and let live has been
our philosophy. We have history of
accommodating everyone.
the Federal Government or the
agency in charge must react. What
is happening now is that the South-
West governors launched probably
the largest police support initiative
without a law establishing it.
If there was a law establishing
Amotekun, will you still have
problem with it?
Oh, there will be no
problem absolutely
The AMOTEKUN file
because we will now
have the required
framework and we will
know what it can do and
what it cannot do.
How do you think the
issue of fears can be
addressed such that
every Nigerian feels
secure in any part of the
country?
The issue of security
of lives and property
should be allowed to be
handled by the
constituted authority
(the Federal
Government). Once you
allow ethnic bigots to
take over the
responsibility of the
constituted authority, we
may be in danger of
creating a monster that will be
difficult to control.
Timeline
•January 9: South-West governors launch Amotekun in Ibadan, Oyo State capital
•January 10: Justice Minister Malami declares outfit illegal
•January 10: Chairman of South-West Governors Forum counters Malami’s claim
•January 19: Yoruba World Congress announce protest plan
•January 21: Pro-Amotekun rallies across South-Western states
•January 23: FG, South-West governors strike deal
Objectives
•Zero tolerance for crime in South-West
•Collaborating with the police and other security agencies to fight crime
Personnel
•Local hunters, members of vigilante groups
•Members of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence corps
•Members of OPC
•1, 320 militiamen
Weapons
Dane guns