OPCI President To Buhari: Nigeria’s Security Architecture Has Collapsed

By Steve Oni, Ilorin

National President of Oodua Progressives Care Initiative (OPCI), Dr. Maruff Olarewaju, has scored President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration low on protection of lives and property of Nigerians.

OPCI boss, who lamented the complete collapse of the country’s security apparatuses, chided the Federal Government for abysmally failing the citizens, particularly with the current spate of Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and herdsmen onslaught which have held the country by the jugular.

Fielding questions from journalists in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, over the weekend at the sideline of the group’s monthly national meeting, Dr. Olarewaju insisted that the formation of Amotekun by Governors of the Southwest was a fallout of collapse of security architecture in the country and federal government’s failings, adding that President Buhari has refused to sack the service chiefs
because most of them are of northern extraction. Ethnicity, he said, is rife and stagnating the country.

Olarewaju, who was the former Kwara state Coordinator of Oodua Peoples
Congress (OPC), said: “Every discerning mind will agree with me
that there is no security in Nigeria. Our security system has completely collapsed. Nigeria’s population is about 200 million, but in the last 10 years billions of Naira has been spent on security. Yet, we are currently experiencing insecurity. Sadly, the issue of insecurity has become seemingly intractable, with little or nothing our security agents have been able to do about it despite humongous spendings.

“Insecurity continues to thrive because the country’s very foundation
is shaky. This crack in the country’s foundation is caused by ethnicity and mutual suspicion. Unfortunately, the heads of our security agencies are skewed in favour of a certain ethnic group. That is why President Muhammadu Buhari has not been able to sack the service chiefs in spite of failure to perform up to expectations. As a result of this, it will be very difficult for the government to secure the lives and property of Nigerians.

“The Buhari government is not ready to secure the lives and property
of the citizens. It is a minus to the administration, because when Muhammadu Buhari was campaigning in 2015, he promised Nigerians that within a short period of his ascension, if the electorate gave him their mandate to be President, the issue of insecurity ravaging the country would be a thing of the past.

“We thought that because Dr. Goodluck Jonathan did not have
military background, that was why he could not nip insecurity in the bud when he was President which made us to vote him out. And we voted for Buhari, believing that within a year all the security challenges would be forgotten, but sadly reverse is the case. Today, nobody can sleep with their two eyes closed. Every street now engages the services of private security personnel simply because there is no adequate security of lives and property from the government.

“That’s why the six core Yoruba states of Lagos, Ekiti, Oyo, Ondo, Ogun and Osun arranged for Amotekun because the central government had failed them. Curiously, the formation of Amotekun was greeted with a lot of criticism from a section of the country. Specifically, the Miyetti Allah, umbrella body of the Fulani herdsmen in the country, has come out to say that Amotekun was formed because of them ostensibly to chase them out of Yoruba land.”

On the yearning and aspiration of the Yoruba of Kogi and Kwara to return to their kiths and kin in Southwest, OPCI President said: “The merger of the
Yoruba speaking area of old Kwara state to the North Central was done
out of selfish interest. The people were not given the opportunity to determine where and who they wanted to align and stay with. Those who did the merger erroneously believed that the Yoruba of the old Kwara would make them get what they were looking for at the centre. But the dream has fallen flat.

“For me, the call for the Yoruba of Kogi and Kwara state to be joined with their kinsmen in the Southwest though presumably belated, the call is in the right direction. You will agree with me that the oft-repeated call for restructuring of the country is getting more and more strident. It’s better late than never to restructure for peace and stability to reign supreme. When we were clamouring for restructuring then, but deaf ear was maintained, we foresaw the challenges that would come the way of Nigeria.”