--INSECURITY: IS YORUBALAND THE NEXT BATTLEGROUND?
Ayo Olukotun
The word "battleground" or more correctly "battleground state" is familiar to students of American electoral politics where it refers to swing states which are critical for the outcome of elections in the United States. But this usage comes from a pacific, non-violent register describing or predicting the fortunes of the major parties. It is not in this sense at all that the word "battleground" is used in this write-up. Here and tragically, the reference in the Nigerian setting is to whether the nightmare of insecurity which has claimed many Nigerian lives, traumatized many more is going to shift to Yorubaland in the foreseeable future.
This may appear speculative or overly pessimistic but students of Media and Public Communication know that one of the functions of the media is to act as remote sensors predicting the future and future events long before they occur. Of course, it is not only the media that have this role, it is also part of the functions of a vigilant government, especially one that is besieged or surrounded by adversaries. The question can then be asked, Why has Yorubaland come under the radar of the galloping insecurity in the land? Precisely because in recent months, there have not only been direct attacks on that part of the country, the Owo massacre of June 5 being a sensational example, but also occasional raids here and there as well as alarms.
As this columnist has repeatedly maintained, the science of futurology is not one of our finer points and we are not exactly a nation that plans but rather one that trudges from one narrow escape to another, responding to emergencies rather than foreseeing them. It is a good thing, at least for a change, that security forces were able to arrest the perpetrators of the cruel massacre of worshippers at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State, with the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor going on national television to announce their names. One can count the number of times in which this has happened but it remains to be seen whether this is a trend-setting example of a new resolve or is just a one-off in a long night of insecurity and terror.
Before the names were released to the public and news of their arrest made the rounds, the Yoruba militia, Amotekun, had intercepted a gang of young men numbering about 120 who were travelling from several states in the North to, if their story is believed, Akure also in Ondo State. According to the Amotekun leader, these youths did not appear to know much about their mission or about the nature of their assignment in Akure, so rightly, they were apprehended and handed over to the Police. There appears to have been several such incidents in recent times. It is significant that it was not the Police that made this important discovery but the civil protection agency established by the Governors of the states in the South West. In the same manner, there have been recent reports of arrests in Ogun and Osun States while Lagos is reportedly under a measure of surveillance attended by "stop-and-search" exercises. This is sequel to alerts of possible raids by bandits and terrorists and the specific discovery in Ogun State of an alleged terrorist who had actually applied to be a security man in the state capital before his arrest.
In point of fact, the Yoruba Generalissimo and Founder of Oodua People's Congress, Aare Gani Adams, had raised several warning signals concerning the possible invasion of the States in the South West by terrorists and bandits. He is not the only one who has done so. The immediate past Prelate of the Methodist Church Nigeria, His Eminence Dr. Samuel Uche, made the same frightening revelation after he was released by terrorists who held him captive for a few weeks earlier this year. In a press conference he held following his release, Uche made clear that his kidnappers whom he described as Fulani claimed that their militias were already stationed in bushes both in the South South and South West parts of the country, including the vicinity of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway waiting for a signal to strike (Dailypost, June 1, 2022). Although remarkably, a few commentators disputed the cleric's claims without investigating them it is unlikely that such an eminent religious personage would have engaged in sensation mongering, more so, as he was describing his experience in the den of kidnappers. Even if it turns out that Uche had exaggerated, a security-minded government and people would have taken precautions because if it turned out that he was right, it would then be too late to regret that no one took him seriously.
At any rate, one does not have to be a military strategist to know that if terrorists made an attack on Sunday morning in a church in Owo, it is unlikely that those terrorists arrived there on the same day that they made the attack. It is more likely the case that they had been lying in wait in surrounding bushes around the vicinity of the town where they struck.
I do not know—I wish I did—whether there exists somewhere in the archives a strategic map of the country. But if it does, such a map should indicate the various hideouts of terrorists around the country.
It will be recalled that for some years there have been claims that armed herdsmen, some of which allegedly speak French, were captured on satellite images in surveillances conducted by a Yoruba socio-cultural group. In the same report, following the murder of Mrs. Funke Olakunri, daughter of Afenifere leader, Chief Reuben Fasoranti on the Ondo-Ore highway in July 2019, statistics were released that terrorist cells in forests and hideouts in many parts of Yorubaland numbering close to a thousand exist.
Of course, such data are subject to verification but one cannot, when dealing with matters of life and death, trivialise, sidestep bits and pieces of evidence coming from different sources. To be sure, even on social media, there have been such reports by people who claim to have escaped death by the whiskers, describing locations of terrorists in parts of Yorubaland. Strangely, and as this writer has often lamented, the politicians have shown little or no interest concerning security matters, apart from occasional jeremiads as to how deadly the country has become.
The current awakening in the South West over security is timely and right on the money but it is not enough.
It is important for civil society leaders, including those in the diaspora, to strengthen Amotekun which is biting more than it can chew. This is because the circumstances of its birth, as in every other non-state security outfit, ran against the tide of official frowning at any semblance of state police. What is at stake here is an existential challenge to the destiny and future of nationalities that constitute Nigeria. Therefore, the discussion even goes beyond the postures and utterances of politicians who may or may not see the danger posed by these tendencies.
To forestall a Zamfara-like scenario occurring in Nigeria means that all hands must go on deck to prevent Yorubaland and similarly afflicted places from becoming the next battleground for terrorists.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
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