Punch Editorial Board
The recent launch of a region-wide security outfit by the five South-Eastern state governors represents a ray of light in a zone spiralling into the dark tunnel of insecurity. The joint security and vigilante network, codenamed Ebube Agu, is expected to “fight and flush out criminals and terrorists from the zone” with the state governments working with all stakeholders to restore peace to the geopolitical region. Though rather late in conception, the governors need to work quickly and extra hard to secure popular buy-in, establish the initiative on a sound legal footing and ensure its effectiveness.
Details of its operational structure are sketchy, but the Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, who read out the 15-point communiqué of the summit held in Owerri, Imo State, said Ebube Agu would be headquartered in Enugu, harness “all the arsenals” of the five states and “galvanise all the relevant stakeholders in the South-East, the political class, business community, bureaucrats and the intelligentsia to support security operatives to ensure total success in the fight against criminality in the zone.”
Lofty words these are, but the governors’ belated action has met with some scepticism by many residents of Abia, Imo, Enugu, Ebonyi and Anambra states whose lives have been upturned by a raging wave of violence and criminality. The governors earned the wariness. Their languor presents Ebube Agu with a possible public trust deficit and immediately pits it against the illegal Eastern Security Network floated by the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra separatist group. They must overcome public apathy and ensure it works to make the region safe for normal activities and investment.
Coming 16 months after the inauguration of the Western Nigeria Security Network, Operation Amotekun, the five South-East governors were inexcusably tardy in responding to the yearnings and agony of a population under siege who looked up to them in vain for succour amid the virtual collapse of the centralised policing structure. Their obvious reluctance to initiate local responses in seeming deference to the federal authorities was re-echoed by Umahi, who last month declared emphatically that the zone did not need a regional security agency. Instead, playing politics, the South-East governors aligned with the diversionary and stillborn federal “community policing” project, forgetting that protection of lives and property is their first duty.
Given the spike in criminality in the region, this was grossly insensitive. Kidnappings, armed robbery, communal violence and increased attacks on communities by Fulani herdsmen have inflicted bloodletting and disruption of social and economic activities across the five states. Violent confrontations between security forces and self-determination groups add to the siege.
The incidents that finally shook the five governors from their self-inflicted cocoons of political correctness, insensitivity and a false sense of security were gunmen attacks and arson on the Imo State Police Command headquarters and a correctional centre where 1,844 inmates were freed a stone’s throw from the Government House, Owerri; and the slaughter of 15 persons during assaults on three villages in Ebonyi State by Fulani herdsmen, whose marauding Umahi had been vigorously downplaying. This is part of an ongoing campaign of attacks on police formations and personnel by gunmen across the region.
Media reports say over 60 security personnel were killed in the South-East and South-South zones by gunmen between December and early this month and several police stations sacked, and their armouries raided. Like every other part of Nigeria today, crime is on the rampage, the national centralised policing system has failed disastrously; insecurity, among other factors, has slowed down economic activities and disrupted social life, no one is safe. Separate attacks on police divisional and zonal command HQs in Abia and Anambra states on Monday resulted in nine deaths, two of them policemen and underscored the insecurity in the zone.
Ebube Agu, therefore, has a difficult task ahead and success will depend on the resolve and sincerity of the governors. A major hurdle is securing public trust; unlike Amotekun, founded in response to popular aspiration with overwhelming buy-in from the South-West population, Ebube Agu, a belated device, will need to make extra effort to secure public confidence. This task is further complicated by the reality of the ESN, which had filled the vacuum for a local vigilance outfit as the five governors dithered and criminals held sway. While the Nigeria Police swung between helplessness and oppressing the people, the ESN militants engaged and dislodged Fulani herdsmen in eastern forests to the delight of the people. Having thus lost the initiative, dislodging the non-state actors implies teaming up with the distrusted and discredited federal security agencies which could further alienate the people. The 21st Century Road Map on Policing adopted by the United States identifies the Three Ps of community policing as People, Policies and Processes, with emphasis on the people identifying with and reposing trust in local police. There is no alternative to popular support.
The intention to involve all stakeholders should be pursued with tact and sincerity. The states should quickly send bills to their respective parliaments to give Ebube Agu legal backing; the ban on open grazing of cattle should also be backed by law and enforced. Community associations, local vigilance groups, faith-based and civil society organisations, traditional rulers as well as market associations and the business community need to be brought in. Suspects should be swiftly prosecuted, and politics should be eschewed; it must never be deployed against political opponents.
Funding will be crucial, as well as adequate provision of logistics, arms, and vehicles, protective gear for operatives and effective monitoring and supervision.
But Ebube Agu, Amotekun, the various Civilian Joint Task Forces in the North should be transitional arrangements; the failure of the constitutionally decreed single central policing system in a natural federation is patently obvious. Nowhere in Nigeria is safe any longer, ungoverned territories abound and criminals, emboldened by state fragility, are operating with impunity. There is no alternative to autonomous state and municipal policing as obtains in every other federal polity, including increasingly, in unitary states. Achieving that goal immediately should be the priority of the federal, 36 state governments and legislatures. Whatever achievements are made by regional outfits will result in permanent, effective policing only when state policing comes to stay.
Originally published PUNCH