Masked security operatives

Agunbiade had noted that though each of the nation’s security units has designated uniforms for the easy identification of its personnel, none has face masks and hoods as part of the repertoire. “Some military and DSS operatives now routinely use masks and hoods openly, particularly while monitoring elections and carrying out their duties”, he said. […]

Agunbiade had noted that though each of the nation’s security units has designated uniforms for the easy identification of its personnel, none has face masks and hoods as part of the repertoire. “Some military and DSS operatives now routinely use masks and hoods openly, particularly while monitoring elections and carrying out their duties”, he said. Agunbiade described such practice as a terrifying development because it conceals the identity of the operatives wearing them from members of the public and could endanger trust in security services.  Hoodlums and people with criminal intention could in fact wear such masks to carry out nefarious activities.
To buttress his case, the member reported to the House that in recent times masks and hoods have been feely used by security operative to perpetrate illegal arrests, harassment and detention of innocent citizens. He prayed the House to prevail on the security chiefs to direct their various personnel to adhere strictly with the official dress codes.
Agunbiade’s motion illustrates the underlying problem of the abuse of power by security officials that is becoming commonplace. The use of masks by security personnel presents a particularly serious problem, because it betrays some specious need for anonymity that reduces culpability for a possible wrongdoing.
Ordinarily, security operations by the nature of their work sometimes may require the adoption of unusual measures, depending on circumstances, including the use of subterfuge to evade detection and to neutralise countermeasures by an enemy. In such a situation, the use of face masks and hoods may be permissible. In that respect too, the security establishment also has at its disposal elaborately defined and specialized units for officers that engage in such operations.  
Typical conditions for this include areas susceptible to terror attacks, when security personnel appear in court to provide crucial evidence and other peculiar contingencies. Polling booths for instance where the electorates are engaged in the process of casting votes cannot by any stretch of the imagination qualify as terror-prone locations to attract masked security operatives, as was the case in the last gubernatorial election in Ekiti State. On the contrary, the sight of operatives with concealed identities actually intimidates voters as such operatives are at liberty to indulge in acts of impunity without fear of their identities being revealed.  
The security chiefs should therefore call their field personnel to order.
The operational orders under which they operate are designed to guarantee their commitment to maintaining maximum safety and security for the citizenry, who in turn should have confidence in them.
In any national contingency involving military action, the civilian population provides the ‘win the war effort’ while the security operatives on their part act as the arrowhead of such enterprise. The two can only work together when there is mutual trust. Such trust, which the security operatives need, is compromised if they are seen by sections of the society as abusing the powers and privileges of their calling, through acts of intimidation and harassment, with or without masks and hoods.
Security personnel in mask are a threat to the civil populace; their wearing of them should be banned.