A former Secretary to the Federal Government, Chief Olu Falae, says injustice is a “critical enemy” of security in the country.
Falae explained that injustice breeds resentment, violence, and negative reaction.
He made this known while assessing the Federal Government’s performance on the security of the lives and properties of Nigerians.
The octogenarian noted that while the government might be doing a lot in that regard, the ordinary Nigerians were not feeling the effects.
Falae added that the country’s security infrastructure has deteriorated over time, calling for concerted efforts to raise the confidence of the citizenry.
According to him, security efforts must be localised to have any meaningful effect.
Speaking to The Punch, the former presidential candidate said, “Somebody asked me recently to compare security of nowadays to what we had in the past, I spoke to him, as an illustration , about myself . When I was 14 years old , I started going to Lagos to attend Igbobi College , my secondary school . I alone would go to motor park and when the holiday started I would return to Akure by myself . I did that for five years, no danger and no problem , now at 81 plus , the government itself warned that I must not go outside of this house by myself without police protection .
“I can ’t go to my farm without police escort . If I can go to Lagos alone at age 14 and by now at 81 , I can ’t go to the back of my house without escort , what has happened to the security system of Nigeria?
“For the answer, there are many factors to the answer. Surely one critical enemy is that there is no justice . Injustice brings resentment , violence and negative reaction. All those causing crisis here and there are reacting . You may not know what they are reacting to but they think they have the valid reason for their reactions. It is for the government to find out what they are reacting to and act on it.
“The second part of it is that security must be locally based. During the colonial period, we did not just have the Nigeria Police , later we had regional police. We had Western Nigeria Police. Not just that every town had a native authority police, at least in Yorubaland.
“The colonial masters that did that were not fools, they knew that Nigeria would soon become big, that the security architecture must be local. But we eliminated that foundation of our security architecture. Everybody is now talking about the community police, we stick to the Nigeria Police but they have still not given us what the colonial government gave us. The Nigeria native police must be independent of the Nigeria Police , so we must return to an arrangement where we have new levels of security organisations like the old native authority police. In the northern part of the country, they have their own local police, they have the Sharia Police but here we have nothing.
“I made this point at the National Constitutional Conference when some of our friends were opposing the concept of state police , I said you in the North already have a replacement of the security system that have been abolished. The Sharia Police has the power of arrest, detention and prosecution. It is a force in addition to the Nigeria Police Force, here in the South, we have only one police .”
Falae lauded the six South-West governors for launching security outfit, Amotekun to combat banditry, kidnapping and other crimes in the region.
Reacting to the launch of the outfit, Falae said, “I think it is a welcome development. At least for the first time in the region, the governors agreed on something to be done on security. We should even clap for them before opening the box to see what is inside.”
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