Afenifere to Tinubu: Seek local, foreign help to end insecurity

*State policing, panacea to insecurity in Nigeria - Reps member

THE Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has urged President Bola Tinubu to seek local and foreign help in addressing the country's insecurity challenges.

It also noted that the sovereignty and corporate existence of the country is being threatened, adding that the Federal Government appears helpless about it.

In a communique by its Leader and National Publicity Secretary, Oba Oladipo Olaitan and Prince Justice Faloye, the Yoruba body expressed worry over the worsening state of insecurity in the country, urging the Federal Government to decisively put an end to the killings of Nigerians.

The communique reads: "Afenifere notes with particular concern that the state of insecurity is such that the sovereignty and corporate existence of the country is being threatened while the Federal Government appears helpless about it.

"Afenifere insists that the unsavoury situation is the consequence of the continued perpetuation of the unitary structure with which the military replaced the negotiated federal arrangements, which continued to deny the constituent ethnic nationalities, particularly of the Middle Belt, their inalienable right to self-determination.

"The continued acceptance of a colonially-derived error implicitly means acceptance of the continued policide and genocide of the Middle-Belt. Afenifere calls for genuine efforts to liberate the people of the Middle Belt through restructuring to devolve power from the center to the states and enabling ethnic nationalities to voluntarily join and states and regions of their choices.

"It is most unfortunate that President Tinubu, who had been a fierce advocate of decentralisation of power, would at the apex of his political career be in cahoots with an unjust system which continues to unfairly exclude several groups in the national equation and is permanently subservient to an ethnic oligarchy. 

"It is most disgusting and unacceptable that the government and its security forces are made to negotiate with terrorists who attend such meetings in their numbers, brandishing the most sophisticated weapons, with the government cowed.

"It has now become embarrassingly obvious even to foreign observers that the Nigerian government's gross negligence makes it complicit in the identified genocide in Nigeria, most noticeably against the people of the Middle Belt who are predominantly Christians.

"It cannot be overemphasised that the irreducible minimum duty of government is the protection of lives and property and any means of guaranteeing the same is a welcome development.

"Afenifere endorsed every form of assistance that may genuinely save the people of Nigeria from the current genocidal attacks.

"The Federal Government should decisively put an end to the killings of Nigerians, regardless of the terminology, whether Christian Genocide or otherwise, including the disgraceful creation of IDP camps where the indigenous Christian population of the Middle Belt is made Refugees in their country while their homes are occupied by Fulani terrorists.

"President Donald Trump's offer of assistance to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing is viewed as redemptive, considering the fact that it was his predecessor, US President Barack Obama's interference in the 2015 Presidential elections that led to the enthronement of the APC.

"The solution to the Nigerian crisis is incomplete without the restructuring of the Federation, particularly the false narrative which claims one North and clearly undermines the destiny of the people of the Middle-Belt, including the much betrayed Hausa who are mischievously classified in a non-existent Hausa/Fulani ethnic nationality.

"The Nigerian federation should ensure enhanced autonomy such that each state shall have its independent Police Command with complementary Divisions at the Local Government and community levels.

State policing, panacea to insecurity  — Reps member

In a related development, the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Delegated Legislation, Mr Femi Bamisile, yesterday, backed the Southwest governors over their call for the establishment of state police to tackle the festering insecurity in the country.

Bamisile, who is a former Ekiti State House of Assembly Speaker, stated that the measure remains the most potent way to resolve the lingering and escalating killings and kidnappings raging across the country.

The lawmaker, in a statement by his Media Office in Abuja, said fighting insecurity using central policing and military systems may not be as efficacious as the ones set up by the subnational, adding that the current security realities of the country make the establishment apt and necessary.

He said over 20 out of the 36 states of the federation are now under the stranglehold of bandits, ISWAP, Boko Haram and marauding herders, which have stressed the police and military beyond an elastic limit.

Bamisile said: "We are begging the President to extend similar gestures for the quick release of students abducted after attacks on a private Catholic School in Niger State.

"The quick release of these students will restore the dignity of our education system. No meaningful progress can be achieved in our education sector when the pre-university education, which is the bedrock of higher education, is endangered.

"About 20 out of the 36 states of the federation are experiencing one form of insecurity case. 

"It is either they are being hit by bandits, rampaging herders, ISWAP, or Boko Haram. The problems are multifaceted and multidimensional, which require a multi-pronged security architecture to get solved.

"Looking at the broad-based dimension the insecurity has snowballed into, our military and police are already overstretched. They have to be complemented at the state level and that is where State Police becomes a way out, no other alternative solution with the current trends that we are experiencing."