As Rivers State prepares for the recruitment of young men and women into the Neighbourhood Watch and Safety Corps, with the governor having inaugurated members of Neighbourhood board of Directors , Governor Wike, the members of the board and the Police have a lot of work ahead of them .
A successful recruitment, if it can be achieved, will be the start of a long and complicated process. Eliminating political affiliation and threat from opposition politics and achieving stability and security in and around the state, will require unconventional thinking and steps that are much broader than playing politics with everything. Just as we should prepare for the neighbourhood watch to go wrong, we should also prepare for it to “go right.”
The all progressive congress, which is the opposition party in the state has come out to say that Governor Wike is trying to equip a private army for the 2019 general elections. The party’s concerns are normal and relative and it is the duty of the Governor to lay some of the issues raised by all concerned to rest by carrying out, transparently, the recruitment of officers of the corps. It should not be a one-party affair as we understand the polarizing nature of party politics in the state.
The stakes are high. We are months away from the 2019 general elections and a month away from the Rivers State local council elections which has become too fierce for a one-party affair.
Rivers State has earned itself scorns for political violence and other sundry acts of militancy, kidnapping, armed robbery and oil bunkering, with complains from several quarters that security of lives and properties are fast deteriorating . The onus lies on the state governor to find solutions to these security challenges but it has to be in a transparent manner devoid of any political undertone.
Just in the past weeks, several incidents have led to the call for the Neighbourhood watch to be put in place to secure most of the communities as the Police seem incapable of securing them with their limited man-power. In Kula, two persons were reportedly killed while many others sustained various degrees of injuries including a police man. In Emuoha local government, Four persons were killed in Rumuoro including a pregnant woman whose unborn baby was ripped out of her belly while the assailant went away with it.
The only response from the Police was an ultimatum issued to leaders of Okporowo community to produce the assailants. If it has become the duty of community leaders to arrest crime suspects, then it goes to say that the neighbourhood watch corps is timely and will become effective for checkmating these criminals if done the right way.
The bone of contention is whether the corps officers will bear arms, who would train them and how are they going to be monitored so that things will not spiral out of control. This is where leaders in the state should sit and discuss, with representatives of the various political parties included.
Even if the the leaders reach an agreement, achieving security and stability and reducing catastrophic risks on the state will require intensive, expert-level negotiations and comprehensive, step-by-step implementation over many months, or perhaps years.
This cannot be viewed as a bilateral PDP-APC discussion — it must also include KOWA, ADP, APGA and CLOs, and it must address statewide security and the political concerns of all the parties, including economic matters.
A successful negotiation requires that all those involved benefit from the outcome. It means all sides must give as well as get. Basic diplomatic skills should be employed for the benefit of residents of the state who are killed and maimed on a daily basics.
There is no guarantee that there will be political breakthrough as regards the security issue bedeviling the state but it is expected that such approach will relay the urgency of the matter at hand.
