Newsie Events: #Opinion
A few weeks ago, Nnamdi Kanu launched a security outfit which he called Eastern Security Network (ESN) and saddled with the responsibility of providing security for the people of the South East especially against marauding herdsmen.
To be sincere, Nnamdi Kanu’s Eastern Security Network(ESN) is illegal, it is not right. A private citizen cannot set up a security force with arms and weapons. This is a very dangerous precedent with severe consequences. What if the Force go rogue? With so many weapons at their disposal, we don’t want to even think In that direction. Irrespective of the supposed responsibility of the ESN, what this shows is that Kanu now has an armed militia at his disposal. He has set up what could be the beginning of a rebel army if it ever gets to need such and this doesn’t mean well.
However, the brazen failure of our country’s security forces to secure the lives and properties of her people is providing a justification for Kanu’s ESN. A void has been created, a void ESN is said to have come to fill. It is wrong for people to provide water, electricity, and other social amenities for themselves, something the government ought to provide but people are doing that.
Kanu is riding on the wave of populism and running a populist movement. This ESN is just another feather to that cap. Populist movements are dangerous because of their appeal to the masses and the support they get from these masses. When this Movement launches, it is usually hard to hold them back. And the failure of government to cater for the masses is usually the fuel that feeds populism. For Kanu, it is the failure of the Nigerian government to cater for the welfare of the masses in the east.
Yes, ESN lacks legality but do you go to a farmer whose farms had been ravaged by criminals and family killed by the same and tell him that a security network created to stop the insecurity plaguing you lacks legality? Legality means nothing to them at this stage. Nigerians need help wherever it will come from, legal or illegal, government or non-government. That is how ESN has been positioned.
Nevertheless, When the government creates a void and consistently fail to fill that void, others will step up. Whether it threatens the sovereignty or authority of the government, the government has itself to blame.
Caleb Onyeabor is a Nigerian intellectual, an avid advocate for political justice, social justice, and economic justice. Author of Diary of a Messed Up country. Follow him on Twitter via twitter.com/caleb_onyeabor
NEWSIE EVENTS MEDIA TEAM Follow Us On Twitter,Instagram & Facebook
@NewsieEvents,I.G newsieevents, Facebook Newsie Events