Opinion: Open letter to Osinbajo on Amotekun by Doyin Okupe

Let me congratulate your government and you personally for your timely and statemanly intervention on the previously raging matter of the creation of Amotekun as a local and support security appendage to assist the police in protecting the lives and properties of people in the Southwest of Nigeria.

The furore created and the national tension that ensued, were unnecessary and preventable. But let's thank God that Wisdom has prevailed at all levels and what needs to be done has been clearly ironed out amicably by all concerned.

My worries, however centre on the inevitable consequences of the decisions reached at your meeting with the southwest governors and the actions and reactions that will likely follow.

I foresee in the next few weeks that various state chief executives and regions in the country will come up with their own security apparatuses for their own local environments. Fundamentally, nothing is wrong with this likely development.

However, at this stage of our national development we must align with modernity and civilisation. Instead of creating a motley web of mushroom, primitive, and unstandadized local security outfits nationwide, it will be better if we take the bull by the horn.

The truth is that THE TIME HAS COME FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF STATE POLICE.

Running from this obvious fact is grand deception and a great disservice to our people. I am aware that the federal government is seriously considering the establishment of community policing.

This project begs the issue. It is unitary and therefore,antithetical to the dictates of Federalism. When we have state police controlled by the state governments, thereafter the states can embark on community policing by themselves at their convenience and on their own varied terms.

For someone or groups of people to sit in Abuja, design and operate a community policing agenda is unacceptable and unworkable.

Your excellency Nigeria can only make progress if its leaders think less of today and always plan for years and years ahead, keeping away from primordial and primitive considerations and ever willing to divest themselves of powers and controls that will make the society freer and safer.

Once again I congratulate you for your achievements so far on this issue of safety of our people and I humbly enjoin you to build on it with courage for the sake of posterity. God bless you and God bless our United Nigeria.