KILLINGS IN RIVERS STATE:A SAD COMMENTARY ON GOVERNANCE
Your Excellency the Executive Governor of Rivers State, I am deeply pained and even terrified by unprecedented wave of avoidable insecurity in the state under your watch. Rivers men and women are gunned down daily, investors are leaving the state in droves, our traditional means of livelihood are in jeopardy and the Garden City of our dreams is being shattered before our eyes in less than 3 years of your administration. I plead with you my Governor, for the sake of the founding fathers of the state and the future of our children, rouse up to your constitutional duties.
It is saddening and disheartening the spate of dastardly killings going on in Rivers State. Virtually every part of the state is envelopped with palpable fear of criminal attacks. Our Rivers and Farmlands have become no-go-areas to our fishermen and farmers due to insecurity, even some parts of Port Harcourt city are under tight control of local warlords. I sense a great danger ahead unfortunately because your Excellency is very active in politics and weak in governance.
What the criminals need to operate freely is ample time and  space. They require time to carry out their mission and space to intimidate their target and allow for quick escape. Every  security agency commander is conversant with the psychology of criminals, especially violent ones and is sufficiently skilled to deal with crimes and criminality.
The missing link and the critical factor giving impetus to the continuing killing is your lack of political will. Your actions and body language your Excellency, will determine the scope and intensity of security operations.  If the Rivers State Government should exert the same vigour and resources deployed to prosecute PDP Chairmanship in combating crime in the state, the  killings would have stopped.
The controversy about the Chief Security Officier (CSO) of the state is unnecesary distraction. As the Executive Governor of the state, you are the No 1 security officer, no doubt about that,  you have never been denied to function in that capacity. What makes you the  CSO is that you preside over the State Security Council, where the highest security policies and decisions of the state are taken. You are constitutionally empowered to appropriate security votes to properly carry out your duties as the CSO.
Every security agency is funded by its head office to carry out routine duties. Duties outside the routine are expected to be supported and financed by CSO through the security vote. The CSO does not need to have operational or administrative control of the security agencies, he does not have the capacity or  competence to arrogate such authority. However, you should coordinate and ensure execution of policies as well as decisions of the state security council. In doing so, you need to work in harmony with the relevant security agencies and not to antagonise any of them. My local proverb says that it is futile to clap with one hand. Unless there is ulterior  motive to protect these criminals, it is imperative for the Governor of Rivers State to demonstrate his love for Rivers people, zero tolerance to crimes and show capacity to govern the state.
Before I end this piece let me tell this story. I served in the UN verification mission in Angola along with the Nigerian Police Contingent. Our Policemen performed so well  that they won laurels in that operation. What is the secret: conducive environment. In Lagos State, the Badoo Cult group has been dealt decisively by the Nigeria Police. The difference is that the Governor of Lagos State has shown capacity and dogged determination to tackle the menace. The result is that the “Police made a major breakthrough in the fight against the menace of Badoo cult with the arrest of the group’s leader, Ota-Aye Fatai Adebayo in Lagos State”. It is not maggic, where there is a will there is always a way. A stitch in time saves nine.
Argument that the Governor is not in control of the security apparatus of the state is lame and boders on ignorance. Your Excellency sir, prove to the Rivers people that their lives are precious and that you can defend them in the  face of killer criminals.
~Brigadier General Elton Amah rtd writes from Port Harcourt.
