Amotekun: Redefining Accountability and Operational Scope.

A statement that reads, "Amotekun will not tolerate indecent dressing and abuse of Yoruba language" and was recently credited to one Amitolu Shittu, a commander of the Osun branch of Amotekun Security Outfit has elicited very mixed reactions, most of which are wholly negative. Beyond the objective controversy and existential depravity that Shittu's statement renders, public opinion also disproves of the matter as a sort of supporter of APC threat coming from the quarters of a supposed alternative security provider and populist auxiliary to the mainstream policing architecture.

This piece does not intend to dwell on the question of appropriateness; rather, the focal object are the evident gaps in the accountability structure and the blurrily defined operational jurisdiction of the Western Nigeria Security Network aka Amotekun. The loopholes, afforded by institutional inadequacies, serve as a ground for future controversies, derailments, abuses, personifications and mutilations of the outfit, if not addressed. For Steven Covey, "Accountability breeds Response-ability." In this case, however, the purpoted accountability is too shallow, undemocratic, vulnerable and individualistic for an entity flouted to police a core region of forty million people and milti-trillion dollar investments. Last month when the Oyo State Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde flagged off the Oyo Amotekun, he said, "... hold me responsible for the actions of the members." This assurance which applies to other states and their governors involved in the Amotekun project is grossly inadequate. The arrangement is such that the security outfit is directly responsible to the governor and not to the people who are the major project stakeholders. This creates some problems.

First, the Amotekun organization is designed in such a way that it is fundamental different from the mainstream. It is an outfit established to triumph anti-people terror, serve as alternative resorts, and take on people's common security concerns from people's angles to achieve public empathy and people-centric effectiveness under the umbrella of professionalism, objectivity and integrity, of course. Given this, for the entity to be successful, it has to explore the potentials of interactive policing and citizen diplomacy to carry out its functions. And the system of accountability should reflect these requisites. So, a one-way, top-bottom accountability structure, devoid of substantive public input is not befitting, to say the least. Amotekun has to come under public scrutiny, subjected to public opinion via television and radio programmes and be regularly assessed for its performance through credible public surveys and opinion polls. Equipping the government with the monopoly of oversight is very much faulty and not a good way to go. The entity has to be people-centred to get the best of Amotekun and for the Amotekun Organization itself to continue being uprightly efficient and responsive in the consciousness of accountability to members of the public, rather than just to someone in the office.

Second, the checks and balance setting is a core component of any viable democracy. When this is breached, the fallouts do include recklessness, power abuse, deplorability and corruption. This is the case of the ongoing mass agitations against the reportedly scrapped SARS and other sister organizations. The command structure of the Nigerian Police is such that the Federal government is the repository of policing powers and to whom all police officers are ultimately responsible. This pathway is practically undemocratic for a supposedly people-based organization, not to talk of concentrating powers in Abuja and Nigerians in different parts of the country being policed in line with the enforced preferences of the President.

Third, how do we guarantee that this same anomaly will not be replicated in Amotekun, given that its accountability structure is a microcosm of the federal arrangement? It is understandable as a fact that in Nigeria, the defects of an inherently weak system are always maximized for the benefits of the privileged few. What gives the assurance that the governor will not convert Amotekun to a personal coercive weapon to enforce biddings and sentiments in the future? What insures us against the possibility of randy, unethical or corrupt persons entrusted with official functions of Amotekun using their powers to murder, maim, intimidate, casualize and immobilize citizens in the name of official discharge of duties?

Lastly, how sure are we that overzealous persons of authority will not turn Amotekun into a sort of moral Police in the South West to violate people's rights and launch privacy infringements in the name of imposing order? When all of these happen, inevitably, as a result of the present loopholes, are we going to always cry and run to the governor who says he is responsible for all the actions of the Amotekun officers? Clearly, such assurance is too inflexible and grossly defective as a safeguard against possible official corruption of Amotekun.

In the end, it should be known and understood that people are not ready to add #EndAmotekun to their present list of endless grievances against the Nigerian State and one way to prevent this is to nip in the bud, what visibly proves to be an emerging menace by doing the proper thing amongst others -reform and submit the Amotekun Organization's structures of accountability and operational scope to the checks and balances of the tripod of government, people and media.

Lanre is a freelance content writer

Lalasticlala, front page, please.

Truly trivial issues like politics, religion, culture and class shouldn't be brought into Amotekun.

The security outfit has more demand task calling for attention that those trivial matters.

Trivial matters will water down the accord people have for Amotekun and being internal division which will ultimately make it loose focus and fail in its core assignment of intelligence gathering and aiding federal security.

I am laughing.

budaatum:

If you know anything about us, this is exactly what would happen with PDP Amotekun faction fighting APC Amotekun faction and between them tekunising our poor land so it looks worse than Libya.

Me? I don't trust our leaders that much.