Why we are witnessing proliferation of vigilantes – AIG Aisabor

A retired Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Ambrose Aisabor, in this interview with Weekend Trust, spoke on the proliferation of local security networks across the country, blaming it on the failure of the existing security structure in the country. He advocated the establishment of state police, saying it would reduce the proliferation of local security networks. […]

A retired Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Ambrose Aisabor, in this interview with Weekend Trust, spoke on the proliferation of local security networks across the country, blaming it on the failure of the existing security structure in the country. He advocated the establishment of state police, saying it would reduce the proliferation of local security networks.

 

As a security expert, how would you describe the activities of local vigilante groups in communities across the country, against the backdrop of the recent extrajudicial killing of northern hunters in Uromi, Edo State?

First and foremost, I am not a politician. The immediate past governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, set up a security network, but immediately he left, the new governor came in and disbanded the outfit and tried to set up his own. The one in Uromi is not Edo Security Network but a local arrangement by the chairman of the Esan North East Local Government Area and some prominent people in the town because the whole Edo Central senatorial district has been faced with criminal activities, kidnapping and banditry almost on a daily basis.

What happened in Uromi was not properly handled. One would have expected those local vigilantes to seek the assistance of the police or take those 16 people to the police station. In Uromi there, you have an area command headquarters and a divisional command headquarters.

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Can the area commander and divisional police officer say they were not aware of an incident that happened for more than three hours? Didn’t they know that something was going on? Where were their intelligence and surveillance officers? Where were their plain-clothed police officers that are supposed to be going out and giving information to their superior officers when they suspect something?

Something happened for more than three hours and the area commander and the DPO were nowhere to be found. If I were still in the police, those two officers would lose their jobs because they abdicated their responsibility.

 

What do you think should have been done with the security outfit?

During the election, the Inspector-General of Police said they should not operate. But the governor should have reorganised the outfit after the election and looked for retired senior officers of the various security agencies to address them, do an in-house training for them and tell them what they are supposed to be doing. For example, they would have been told that when they arrest, they are supposed to hand the suspects over to the nearest police station.

They are not supposed to be the judge in their own court. They have no power to prosecute or torture people. Any citizen can make an arrest, but once you make an arrest, you hand over to the lawful authorities, who are supposed to investigate and prosecute if there is need for that. That was not done.

Because of inexperience, the governor did not know how to handle the situation and the unfortunate incident in Uromi happened. Then in a panic measure, he suspended the retired commissioner of police he appointed when he came in newly to handle that outfit. Both the retired CP and the governor were not professional. They didn’t know what to do. Look at Amotekun in the Yoruba states; they are doing very well. You can’t hear complaints against them. But the ones in Edo were not properly trained and briefed on rules of engagement. And others were not properly spelt out to them. The retired CP, who is supposed to be the head of security, has been sacked because of inexperience; he did not know what to do, to the extent that they were protesting against him in their headquarters in Benin, which is an embarrassment.

This should be a prelude to the establishment of state police that people have been talking about. If we had state police in the country, you would see that these criminal activities would have gone down drastically. These security outfits are supposed to be the prelude to the nucleus of state police. But the way they are behaving now, it appears that the governors who are supposed to be chief security officers don’t know what they are doing. But in some other states, they know what they are doing.

If you want to create state police in a place like Ondo and others, you would see that there would be no problem. These Amotekun people will just fit into their plan. It will be the nucleus; the takeoff point. But in Edo State, because of politics, hatred and acrimony over the governor’s predecessor, you want to bring everything down and start on a clean slate. But government is a continuous process, so you don’t get everything right all the time.

I expected the governor to look at the area of security because Edo has been having such challenges. He should have critically taken a look into the state’s security. Because the IG disbanded them during election, the governor just came with the mindset that they were employed to do some dirty political jobs. But it is not like that.

When Obaseki was here, people could see the activities of the security network. They were everywhere in the state and were doing marvellously well. But when this new man came, he did not know what to do, so he spoiled everything. He took irrational decisions instead of building on the foundation he met on the ground. That is the problem.

 

What is the implication of the proliferation of local security outfits?

As I said, the Edo Security Network is supposed to cover the whole state, so there is no need for any other local outfit. I am not even sure that those in Uromi are products of this security network. I am sure it was arranged by the local government chairman and some indigenes of that area, just like a youth body. It was not really a security outfit sponsored by the state government. There was no need for such outfit to exist when the state has its own security network.

You are not supposed to allow proliferation of these outfits and you don’t have control over them. No person lectures them and tells them their rules of engagement, powers and limitations. No person tells them that when they arrest, they must hand them over to the nearest police station. They were just operating without control, which is not supposed to be.

 

Does it mean there is distrust with the existing security structure; which explains why communities are coming up with their own security networks?

That one is a big problem. When you look at the police, the manpower is not there. Not that they don’t have enough personnel, but more than 80 per cent of their personnel are in private hands, servicing private families. Nigerians who have the money go to either the CP, area command or zonal command, or even the Force Headquarters in Abuja to get policemen and pay monthly to the authorities that gave them the personnel; hence the police don’t have enough personnel to carry out their core duties.

That is why communities decided to get their own security outfits; and that is why you see proliferation. Some will call it forest guards; they call them so many names because the number of security agents is too few on the ground. The distrust is also there.

Some people believe that when you arrest and hand over to the police, the police would allow them to go after collecting money. That problem is there, but what I am telling you now is that most of the security personnel, especially the police, are in private hands. They are not doing their core duty of protection of lives and property – an effective patrol of the metropolis and the areas they are supposed to cover.

In most divisions now, most of the policemen have been assigned to hotels, church pastors – people that are not supposed to have police personnel. The federal government too is not helping matters by not giving them proper funding, so they resorted to looking for ways of making money to run the command. The allocation from the Force Headquarters is so minute; maybe in a quarter they would send N30,000 to a command. Can that fill the tank of a vehicle in one day? All the materials and equipment to work are not enough. It is the state governments that are helping the police.

Because of the failure of federal government-owned security outfits, especially the police that should be responsible for the security of lives and property, almost all state governments have established their own local security outfits.

It is just like a vote of no confidence in the regular police force. People no longer have confidence in the police because they are not effective. This is why we need state police to start effectively. Once there is state police, state governments would know how to take care of them.

 

Do you think that establishing state police would reduce the proliferation of local security outfits?

Once there is state police there would be no need for local vigilante again. The state police would take care of the whole state.

 

In the absence of state police, is there a way we can make these security networks effective?

I know that the local security network in Edo was trained by the police; and that is how it should be. They were trained in all the rudiments of security, but the local vigilante groups were not; and they have no reason to exist. So it is the absence of effective and accountable policing that has led to the proliferation of these vigilante groups all over the country.