South-West Governors Get Thumbs Up From Afenifere for Security Move

… Commends Decision to Establish Joint Surveillance Monitoring Team, Tackle Food Inflation

The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and socio-political organization, Afenifere, has commended the governors of the six states in Yorubaland over their decision to establish a Joint Surveillance Monitoring Team ‘to oversee and coordinate security efforts across the South West region’.

The commendation was contained in a Press Statement issued by the organization’s National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi.

It would be recalled that the six governors met at the Lagos State Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos on Thursday, where they resolved to establish the surveillance team as well as taking steps to bring down food prices in the region.

They were Governors Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Lucky Aiyedatiwa (Ondo), Biodun Oyebamiji (Ekiti), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), Ademola Adeleke (Osun) and Babajide Sanwoolu (Lagos) who hosted his colleagues.

The Thursday meeting was the second since the South West Governors’ Forum (SWGF) elected Governor Sanwoolu of Lagos as its chairman on June 10, 2024.

Having taken note of security threats in the South West, the governors stated in the communique issued at the end of their meeting that they have “agreed to establish a Joint Surveillance Monitoring Team to oversee and coordinate security efforts across the South West region”.

To give life to this resolution, the Forum expressed its commitment to “deploying advanced technology, including aerial surveillance systems to enhance security operations”. The governors also decided on mandating their respective Special Advisers on Security to “collaborate on intelligence gathering and sharing between State security agencies, local security networks, and federal law enforcement authorities among South West States”.
Afenifere regarded this as a good and timely move.

“Incidentally, a framework is already in place for them to work on. That is the Southwest Security Network otherwise called ‘Amotekun’. All the states in the region have Amotekun except Lagos.

What they needed to do now is not only to ensure that Lagos establish its own but to streamline the activities of the body, equip it and boost the morale of its personnel through appropriate wages and other incentives”.

Afenifere spokesman stated that it is worthy of note that the governors expressed their readiness to deploy advanced technology, including aerial surveillance systems in their area.

He however urged the governors not to let this be at the level of mere postulation or rhetoric but to actualize the decision by “procuring and deploying modern equipment for the purpose of detecting security threats as well as providing the wherewithal to apprehend would-be culprits possibly before crimes are committed and certainly even after the commission of criminality”.

Enjoining the governors not to waste any time in actualizing their resolution, Ajayi recalled that the Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, only last month, revealed that bandits have established camps in his state, mentioning the one near Fashola in Oyo-Iseyin axis where he observed his birthday vacation in December, 2024. There also were reports of banditry and terrorist acts in Ondo, Osun, Ekiti, and Ogun in recent times.

On Wednesday this week, Ogun State Security Network Agency, Amotekun Corps, disclosed that it has rescued 16 alleged victims of sexual abuse in a brothel in Ifo, Ifo local government area of the state.

The victims ages range between 12 and 27. Reports of banditry and related terrorism acts often come from Yewa and Oke-ogun/Ibarapa areas of Ogun and Oyo States as well.

On the resolution of the governors to “implement collectives measures aimed at curbing food inflation in the region”, Afenifere submitted that the focus of governments in the South West should not necessarily be on forcing foodstuffs sellers to bring down the prices of food items.

“They should focus more on ensuring that foods are produced in large quantity in their respective areas. If food items are surplus, sellers and middlemen would be forced to sell at reasonable prices.

In any case, governments can even set up special areas where foods they produced can be procured by citizens as Lagos State is doing”.

The statement maintained that setting up ‘State Food Inflation Joint Monitoring Team’ and ‘Aggregation Centre /Food Hubs’ as announced is not likely to achieve the objective of mitigating food inflation. What can achieve this is to ensure that foods are produced in large quantity in the region.

“It is a known fact that most of the foods being consumed in the South west come from other regions outside of Yorubaland. This was not the case in the past. We should take steps to ensure that we produce what we consume – or at least a good quantum of what we consume”.

He added that efforts at controlling prices of commodities without working on how these commodities are produced may be counter-productive.

This is because local sellers normally base their selling prices on how much they bought the commodities, costs of transportation, various levies by sundry bodies including governments as well factoring-in their own profit margins.

“These are factors responsible for the inflation of food prices and they can be reduced to the barest minimum if the foods are produced locally” the statement concluded.