…As stakeholders seek refuge in Civil Defence

By Bose Adebayo

They often start their beat around twelve in the night. Some of them are armed with locally made guns while others, supposedly in a bid to fortify themselves, decorate their bodies with all manner of charms.

And they see their job as one that requires them to deal with those perceived as being a threat to the neighbourhood.

But sometimes members of the now common neighbourhood vigilante carry out their task with overzealousness bordering on ruthlessness or even the bizarre. For instance, they have been accused of employing sinister means to hypnotise and inflict injuries on their victims some of whom die in the process.

A case in point was the story of a young man who travelled from the Eastern part of the country to visit his cousin in Lagos.

Arriving late at about 12 midnight, he decided to trek to his counsin’s house from the bus-stop. He was said to be about a stone’s throw to his destination when he was accosted by some members of the neigbourhood vigilante.

An argument ensued afterwards and all his pleas that he was not an armed robber fell on deaf ears. He was reportedly beaten with charms and before his cousin could come to his rescue and he vomited and then gave up the ghost.

With this kind of unfortunate development, there has been renewed calls for a review of the kind of security arrangement that communities put in place to safeguard themselve since the Police have failed to live up to expectation in this regard.

It has been argued that the issue of security has gone beyond mere carrying of guns or displaying charms around one’s neck to scare undesirable elements.

On account of this,  the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps(NSCDC) is believed to have taken it upon itself to change the situation. It advertised its intention in this regard at a recent stakeholders forum it had with private guards companies.

The forum said a lot of harm is being done in the name of security many  untrained hands that have found their ways into the security job. “Foreigners and vigilante groups like the OPC (Odua People’s Congress) are taking over our jobs.

We see them operating as security agencies but we know that they are not registered. We have to realise that the involvement of foreigners in security business is a risk to the nation,” said Mr. Jibola Awoseyi, President, Society of Security Practitioners of Nigeria(SSPN).

In his response, NDCDC’s Assistant Commandant General (ACG) Sam Onyemachi, said the Civil Defence frowns at the idea of foreigners conniving with Nigerians to operate unregistered security companies, assuring that efforts were in top gear to arrest such illegal operators.

“All we ask is for you to give us information about the names of these companies operated by these foreigners and we shall send our men to arrest them. Give us information and watch how we shall respond and if we fail, then you can say we have failed,” he said.

Onyemachi, however, lamented that many vigilante organisations enjoy patronage from state governments, thereby conflicting with the mandate of the NSCDC and called on stakeholders to report any illegal operations in their neighbourhood.

In a chat with Vanguard Metro, Head of Department, Private Guards for Civil Defence, Ray Ekwueme said the involvement of foreigners in the running of private security companies is a security risk to the nation. According to him,  the OPC, Neighbourhood Watch, Man ‘O’ War, the Nigerian Legion and a host of others have been operating as security guards, but do things in a manner that border on recklessness.

“The Legion are not supposed to be in charge of security but  people employ them as guards. A lot of our members have complained about this and the time has come to arrest offenders. Security operatives must be duly licensed if they want to continue operating,” he explained.

Ekwueme also said: “Monitoring organisations 1ike the OPC and Neighbourhood Watch in Lagos is one of the problems of the Civil Defense. We are glad that the Federal Government has mandated the Civil Defense to recommend those private companies which should be registered.

Unfortunately many organisations like the OPC and others get more recognition.  So what do we do since government cannot fight government”.

Also speaking, the Commandant of the NSCDC, Lagos State, Dauda Mungadi, asked the security practitioners to recommend some of their members to enrol in the task force.
According to him, many of them will go round banks and telecommunications companies to ensure that only registered security guards are employed.

He also said that the Lagos State Command was already in the process of  building its database of all private security guards in the state, saying this will help track security guards who got employed by security companies after  committing a crime somewhere.