Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has finally opened up his take on Amotekun, a southwest security initiative the region’s governors put together in response to rising insecurity in Nigeria.
While expressing concern, the former president commended the governors by contrasting their pro-active response to President Muhammadu Buhari’s reactive approach.
“What these Governors have shown was that they were concerned and they cared. I would not know if any of them was shocked but most of them took steps as they deemed fit to enhance the security of life and property for their citizens and to augment the failing and inadequate security provided at the national level,” he said in his speech on Saturday at the 1st Memorial Lecture for the late founder of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Frederick Fasehun.
Buhari weeks ago said he was shocked at the rising rates on insecurity in the northwest–formerly thought stable compared to the northeast where Boko Haram is raging.
Obasanjo, a critic of Buhari’s, there is no doubt that the national security architecture, apparatus, system and arrangements in Nigeria today have failed to measure up to the needs of the citizens in different parts of the country.
He however noted how welcome the Amotekun intervention has been.
“From my personal observation as I talked to people and people across the board talked to me, nothing has united the people of South West like Amotekun since independence except independence itself. Not even the civil war was such a unifier,’ he said.
Still knocking Buhri and his government, Obasanjo cited hoe ethnic and religious bodies have been worried about the government inaction.
“It is instructive to note that the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), under the leadership of Sultan of Sokoto, became extremely worried about the level of insecurity in the country and then called on President Buhari to declare a state of emergency for security in the country,” he said.
“The Northern Elders Forum has spoken out on the pervasive insecurity in the nation. The Governor of Borno, Babagana Umara Zulum, has pointed out that in his eight months in office, Auno, a community in his State, has been attacked six times.”
He piled up these instances to highlight the disconnect and distrust going on in the C-in-C office.
“There has been embarrassing paralysis and katakata in the present nation’s security house as if we have nobody in charge. If it had happened before, it was not so brazenly in the public domain.”
He advised the southwestern initiative be refined and improved upon to serve as adequate complement and enhancer of present, disappointing and inadequate, national security architecture and provision.