EBEN ENASCO REPORTING.
One of the major hallmarks of Edo State present administration is the ability to attract investors, through Partnership initiatives.
Evidently, there had been a lot of memorandums of Understandings, MOUs, Signed between the state government and intending investors during the years under review.
Signing these Clusters of MOUs maybe the right way to earn trust between Parties going into contractual obligations.
But, there are some fundamental reasons the number of MOUs Signed can’t transmit to visible projects.
The fear created by the ravaging security Challenges could be part of the underlying attributes as possible obstacles that should draw the concern of all at the corridor of power.
Apart from government securing funding for such partnership, insecurity is a glaring factor that may scare investors away in that light, that totally needs Government, and all interventions.
No investor will invest in a place where their investments can’t be guaranteed no matter how beautiful the pact signed maybe.
The whole essence of investment is to make profits and if this is defeated, partnership could suffer.
Security, according to all proven and acceptable arguments, is a collective business of all.
No community, private operators, public places and the government itself, can be safe and perform optimally, when security architecture is breech to deliver dividends of democracy.
There’s the need to workout possibilities in crime prevention.
Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, in 2019, launched the state’s Security Trust Fund/Security Architecture.
He also launched brand new 50 patrol cars, 30 hilux, 30 patrol motor bikes, two Armored Personnel Carriers for the security outfit code named ‘Operation Wabaizigan.’
The Governor, during the commissioning ceremony, said the new security architecture was in fulfillment of his electioneering campaign promises and that it would address the security challenges in the state.
The Governor further disclosed that the sum of N2 billion Naira had been set aside for security in the 2019 budget.
His words, “We are making unequal statement about our commitment to improve the security apparatus of the state”.
“Our new security architecture will address the long overdue challenge of redefining the roles and the relationship between the various security agencies in the state.
“We are resolved to tackle head-long, all flash points of insecurity and to get rid of violence and other crimes from our dear state.
In furtherance to the promise I made to the people of Edo state that we will turn Edo state around by fashioning out innovative ways to deal with key development challenges.
“We therefore decided that the new security architecture is something we must do as a matter of priority,” Obaseki said.
Chairman of the state security trust fund, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede who was seen as a man to discharge this, and tend to have disappeared in his remarks, noted that there is no price too high to pay for security.
Aig-Imoukhuede pointed that, security is not a business left to the government alone.
He added that, the private security outfits and corporate bodies should join hands with the state government in the fight against insecurity.
After this tempting encouragement,
Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede seems to have gone awol.
First, let us recognize that there are provisions for Security votes across various states which tend to point to the real genuine measure undertaken by Federated Authority to stem crimes.
A harmless question is, why has the security votes not being used to exclusively fight crimes? Do we need funds voted from another source to fight crimes? Or the Huge sums voted are only audio from the source?
Arguably, if the government sincerely want to tame the heightened Security Challenges, having Wabazigan in one face and in another face, Edo State Security Network, or Local Vigilante, sounds like a dublication of interest and a waste of public funds.
If it is ‘true’ that democracy, is the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then collapse one and make the other more formidable by strengthening the framework to meet best practices.
Harmonizing all Security frameworks within the context to fix insecurity, could mean that a government is prudently ready to allow investors.
In a clime where those saddled with the responsibility of securing its populace fails, the hope of the common man diminishes in a twinkle.
GOVERNOR GODWIN OBASEKI SHOULD KNOW THIS.
Ever since the 1980s, kidnapping perpetrated for different reasons remains a feature of the landscape of criminal victimization in Nigeria.
However, the menace of kidnapping for ransom has become a serious threat to human security in Nigeria in the two decades running.
Extant literature on kidnapping incident, has largely explored the historical background, motives, impacts, and state responses to this growing security threat.
It is obvious that, highways linking Edo state to other parts of the Country has been endangered with influx of suspected herders in collaboration with indigenous elements.
What is missing, however, is a critical examination of the broad typologies of operation to deepen the understanding of how this scourge and other related vices is perpetrated by organized criminal gangs and then match it with organized Security frameworks to ease fear.
Despite this, let not fail to also commend the Governor for his foresight to massively develop the state and take it to enviable position, then, his zest in putting these initiatives together would have amounted to nothing if he can’t win war against rising kidnappings in his state.
And if he must win, the Governor must be ready to expend part of the security votes to equip committed citizens who have volunteered and throw themselves into the fray of security combats without minimum protections.
Going forward, Governor Obaseki, therefore, must focus on the evolving threats of kidnappings on highways, routine, invasion, as well as insider models, based on insights gleaned from the character and modus operandi of kidnapping gangs.
Although, the escalation of kidnapping for ransom derives from, and reflects, the crisis of the Country’s political economy.
Utilizing a theoretical bridging framework that combines the lifestyle theory, routine activity theory, and economic theory of crime, could help counter crimes.
The factors that underpinned the escalation of criminality and the upsurge in kidnapping for ransom seems to be overwhelming the Nigerian Police.
This may have necessitated the adoption of extra measures by the Nigerian government such as the registration of mobile phone users, adoption or amendment of anti-kidnapping legislation by some states to provide harsh punishment, perhaps death penalty, the deployment of military task force, and demolition of structures or buildings owned or used by kidnappers for their operations, among others.
These and other measures have proven largely ineffective in addressing the menace.
However, placing premium interests in the training, remuneration as well as welfare of Local Security Actors, like the Edo State Security Network, will bring about complementing the Conventional Security Agencies in the discharge of their mandates who many believed have been overwhelmed.
For the Edo State Security Network, the willingness and commitment to stem crimes must be complemented by the state government.
In a short spell of it existence for instance, without probably earmarking the Two billion architecture trust funds, Edo State Security Network has done enough to earn more, considering the spate of crimes, after the #EndSARS# conundrum.
Given this, we have seen the level of abyssal killings orchestrated by cult related engagements reduced drastically in Benin City and environs, even though there maybe pockets of individuals still fronting crisis.
If these preludes a Hallmark of achievements by Edo Security Network, it’s expected that Government should Channel its efforts in equipping them to remove some burdens from the Police Operatives who have been overstretched.
Again, the Edo security Network, like Public Work Volunteer Scheme, PUWOV, can also be inducted into the state civil service commission which would serve as Job security to jobless citizens’ in turn, enhance the two hundred thousand jobs the Governor promised to create during his first tenure electioneering campaigns.
To this end, Edo state government is expected to implement these measures to drastically reduce poverty, create employment for the teeming youths, curb widespread hostilities, and evolve a reliable identification of this Security Volunteer’s system, alongside security and law enforcement agencies to actualize thorough crimes clear out in the State.