Opinion: Amotekun: Standing up to the bullies

Okenyi Kenechi

The launching of Amotekun by governours of the South-West region has led to the re-activation of regional tension and geopolitical re-alliance. While the usual suspects, aided by a lobsided constitution, have become restless over the regional security outfit, their displeasure, indeed, reveals that for Nigeria to break away from its current state, the bully must be confronted.

No other region has become quite apprehensive, or have shown much disdain for the restructuring of Nigeria that the North. That is why one is not surprised by the antics of those who have undertaken to speak for the region, especially leaders of the herdsmen who have been threatening fire and brimstone.

Amotekun is the prelude to the restructuring of Nigeria and other regions, especially the South-East and South-South should be bold enough to follow the example of the South West.

Nigeria is grossly under-policed. This, together with the institutionalized poverty of this regime have led to bigger crises of insecurity. People are killed, butchered, robbed and threatened daily as Nigeria’s security agencies look on.

But the biggest irony is the fact that the Buhari led government peopled by former generals seems confused about how to deal with growing insecurity. The army has been drafted into a long religious conflict and homebred terrorism in the North. The war seems not to have an end. While banditry has been unleashed on the rest of the core north and middle best, the South has been bedevilled by criminality blamed of foreign herders from the Sahel. The central government has shown nothing but lack of political will to confront this glaring reality yet they want investors to bring in their money and invest in an atmosphere of chaos. Only a masochist takes his money to a place he will recoup loses.

However, those who have a grasp of the problem and have fashioned out ways to solve them are being branded renegades by the same government that has failed to solve the same problem, instigating its chief law officer to declare such solutions ‘illegal’. It is time for Nigerians to resist such bullies.

Interestingly, the South-West looks sure of having its ways. The divide and conquer methodology of this government seems not to be working on them. Their intellectuals and leaders irrespective of their religion and political affiliation have all supported the regional security drive.

Governors from South-East and South-South should follow suit. They should never allow politics to divide them. If we are able to comfortably secure ourselves and put an end to the misuse of security agencies for political expediency, we would have achieved a lot. More importantly, we would have kickstarted the restructuring of Nigeria to the chagrin of those who want Nigeria to remain unified in penury.

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