EVEN though President Muhammadu Buhari chose to use the Quarantine Law rather than the State of Emergency instrument to compel compliance with efforts to fight the Coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria, we are nonetheless in a situation of emergency. The world is at war with an invisible and dangerous enemy.

Unfortunately, our security agencies have not quite properly reflected this national mood in their responses to the call of duty. In most cases, the Police and other law enforcement agencies dispatched to the streets and highways to enforce the stay-at-home and social distancing order merely carry out their orders with very little care taken to watch out for the upsurge of activities in the underworld.

Criminals are the “regular customers” of the Police. They are always on the lookout for opportunities to strike. Asking the people to stay indoors for two whole weeks in order to curtail the spread of the Coronavirus disease presents the criminal elements of our society with an opportunity to prey on hapless law-abiding citizens.

Towards the end of the first two weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the lockdown of Lagos, Ogun and Abuja, hoodlums such as motor-park touts, Area Boys, cult groups and neighbourhood gangs in the two adjacent states of Lagos and Ogun started taking actions meant to stampede the government into relaxing the lockdown.

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As the lockdown had disrupted their “business” of extorting motorists, the hoods became restless. They started burning tyres at street junctions in parts of Lagos and Ogun and also moving in large numbers from house to house robbing people of money and food. They targeted vehicles bringing foodstuff to the various localities and looting them. They broke into shops and warehouses and looted them.

It was not until some considerable damage had been done that the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, sent in his Special Forces to hunt the criminals.

Before he acted, videos surfaced on the social media showing scenes of young men sharpening their knives, matchets, daggers and other dangerous weapons in readiness to guard their neighbourhoods and homes in case the gangsters came in the night.

The danger in this apparent resort to self-help is that today’s “heroic” youths could easily turn to tomorrow’s hoodlums. If this emergency atmosphere continues for too long, they could also form into gangs and start targeting innocent Nigerians to settle old ethno-religious or partisan scores through lynching and even pogroms. They could become more dangerous than the “professional” criminals who are only after material things not politics.

The Police and other security agencies should be more vigilant and proactive and prevent any situation that could lead the citizens to adopt self-help. They should not wait until they are specially given orders “from above” before they do their constitutional duties.

VANGUARD