As the day go by, Lagosians are coming to the reality of the ban of Okada and Keke operations on major highways and bridges across the state. While the citizens are making necessary adjustments, it is now glaring that this ‘positive’ change has come to stay. However, the ban have witnessed a drastic change in the security of lives and property since it took effect. 
Just as the Lagos State Government has said that in the last three weeks, data from General Hospitals across the state shows there were just seven accidents instead of the 28 usually recorded every month. This has also reflected on the security of lives as bikes are used for robbery attacks, bag snatching, and other dastardly acts.
However, the ban is a major step aimed at ridding the state of banditry, crimes and all forms of evil attacks visited on Lagos residents by criminal elements. The establishment of the state security outfit, Amotekun and the on-going process to legalise these security outfits is definitely a welcome development. The Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) code-named Operation Amotekun (Leopard), is a security outfit jointly established by the governments of the six South Western states of Nigeria – Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Osun and Ekiti to curb the growing menace of insecurity in the region. It was founded on January 9, 2020 in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, and it is the first regional security outfit established by any geopolitical zone in Nigeria.
For starters, Lagos, Osun and Ekiti States has already recruited 1,320 operatives for Amotekun. For now, they will carry dane guns like local hunters, and will be operating in about 52 deadly blackspots all over the region.
The question now is: what would be the place of the Lagos State Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LSNSC) charged with similar responsibility, which seem ineffective two years after it was set up? At inauguration, the agency commenced operations with 177 salon cars and vehicles equipped with security gadgets; 377 motorcycles; 377 helmets and 400 bicycles and metal detectors.
Despite the 100 strong officers of the corps deployed to each council area in the state, where they are expected to help in intelligence gathering and sharing with the Nigeria Police Force, their presence in these communities is, at best unnoticed. Rather than residents feeling the impact of their presence in their neighbourhoods or places of primary assignments, the corps have more often than not been found around venues of state and local councils-hosted ceremonies and such social events.
While this happens, some officers of the Corps have turned themselves into traffic officers, thereby competing with men/officers of the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA) in traffic management. This is condemnable.
Amotekun, we believe will serve as a tool for community policing, tackle the menace of insecurity, social unrest and upheavals, kidnappings, incessant farmer/herder clashes, armed robbery and thuggery in the region. This can be effectively done with the assistance and cooperation of the members of the community who will readily repose trust in a security structure they can identify with. For Nigeria to combat the security issues it is faced with, more regions must adopt this security initiative as its advantages in more ways, outweighs the perceived disadvantages.
Even though the nation’s constitution puts security and defence on the exclusive legislative list, which means that only the Federal Government has the power to make laws regarding security, the current spate of insecurity across the country, calls for immediate decentralisation of the security apparatus in the country to enhance effectiveness and reduce the colossal loss of lives and property to criminals and bandits. It is obvious, nevertheless that we still need a security outfit that can primarily complement the efforts of the police, fight criminality and insecurity at the grassroot.
The joint efforts of the southwest governors, who were elected on the platforms of different political parties is highly commendable. They have demonstrated genuine concerns for the security of all and sundry within their domain by shunning their political differences to pursue an agenda for the common good of those who elected them.
