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Security experts have linked the rising criminality and insecurity in parts of Nigeria, especially border towns of Lagos and Ogun in the South West, to the military actions in the South South and the country’s slide into economic recession.
The South West region in recent times has witnessed spate of killings, kidnapping and other criminal acts mostly along the coastal Lagos and Ogun communities.
The experts say the hardship unleashed by the economic crunch is forcing many to migrate from predominantly civil service states to city centres like Lagos and Port Harcourt, where liquid cash still circulates because of high volume of commercial activities.
The experts say, as they also strongly advocate state policing, deepening of intelligence gathering by all security agencies and some measure of palliatives by state and federal governments to stem the tide.
Oyesoji Aremu, a professor of correctional psychology and coordinator, Strategic and Security Studies, University of Ibadan, says the deployment of military in the South South to check the criminal acts of oil pipeline bombing and crude theft has made the region uncomfortable for the militants, who are moving out through the creeks to comfort zones like the coastal communities of Lagos and Ogun to engage in kidnappings and other crimes.
Aremu says the situation is compounded by the fact that Nigeria as a nation lacks properly coordinated criminal databases co-shared by the various security agencies and the public, which allows for easy identification and tracking of criminals.
“Criminals move freely from one location to another and continue their criminal acts. That is why police state and community policing is important. So that when a strange face moves into a community, the people can report to the local police who should be able to ask questions and carry out some background checks on the person,” he says.
The professor punctures the argument about governors hijacking state police to witch-hunt political opponents, saying it is naïve to sacrifice the overall safety of the citizens on the alter of fear that state police will become willing tool in the hands of governors.
“Any case, are the governors not presently controlling the commissioners of police in their states? So, this argument doesn’t hold water,” he says further.
Davidson Akhimien, managing director, King David Security, providing a dimension to the issue, says there is a correlation between economic recession and criminality.
“In the past, you could notice that certain crimes where localised in a particular region, but now these crimes cut across the regions. What this speaks to is the fact there is a gulf between the rich and the poor, which needs to be bridged.
“Many who have lost their jobs are moving to the urban centres to seek means of surviving the crunch, so there is bound to be increase in crime level,” Akhimien says.
He stresses that there is the need for the government at the state and federal levels to consider possible palliative measures that will enable the citizens afford daily means, while the security agencies must take the fight to criminal enclaves to dislodge them.
