Growing Insecurity in Ajeromi-Ifelodun
The Ajegunle Peoples’ Movement (APM), a community-based platform of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), condemns the violence in the local government mostly orchestrated by bourgeois politicians using political thugs and hoodlums.
By Moshood Osunfurewa, DSM Ajegunle, Lagos, branch
The Ajegunle Peoples’ Movement (APM), a community-based platform of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), condemns the violence in the local government mostly orchestrated by bourgeois politicians using political thugs and hoodlums.
We in the APM blame both the authorities – the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the local government for failing to arrest the growing violence and criminal activities. For example, despite early notification and distress calls to the various police stations, policemen frequently arrive late and are only interested in raiding innocent youth or onlookers long after these misguided political thugs or hoodlums have left the scene with their victims in sorrow, fear, pain, and blood.
Sadly, lives and businesses in Ajegunle have been severely disrupted, as if we are in a state of war. For many weeks, heinous crimes have been committed on a daily basis, primarily in areas populated with many traders. Criminal atrocities are the order, ranging from ritual killings in Trinity to weekly street fights between Iyalode and Alayabiagba and house-to-house night robbery in the streets of Arumoh and Layinka axis of the LG. This is besides the rivalry and supremacy battle between different factions of the road transport union popularly known as Agbero, which has continued to create tension and violence in the community.
We were even more alarmed by the deteriorating security situation in Ajegunle, growing poverty and youth restiveness. We hold that if the federal allocation and revenue generated from market women and men, including Okada riders, shops, traders, and artisans, had been democratically and judiciously managed by workers and community people, together with demand on the state and federal governments to provide infrastructure and adequate funding for education and health care it is possible to begin to address the conditions that make social problems to thrive.
However, the situation is complicated further by poorly motivated police force and the fact that police officers continue to rely on relatively primitive human intelligence-gathering tools or weapons to carry out their constitutionally mandated task of combating or preventing crime.
In the immediate future, we urge the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) to arrest and prosecute these political thugs and hoodlums who are perpetrating these unlawful but heinous activities in Ajeromi-Ifelodun LGA regardless of their connection to any political godfather or political party. We also call for setting up of democratically run non-sectarian community defence committees including representatives of community people, traders, artisans, youth and police to organize measures and steps against insecurity and any act of violence.
We call on the youth, traders, market women and men, shopkeepers’ associations, including CDAs, in the various communities to begin pressing political office holders in local government—the local executive government chairmen, two members of the Lagos State House of Assembly, and a member of the Federal House of Representative and the Lagos State government to create some decent jobs by building or facilitating the building of SME industries and social amenities. This, we believe, will help begin to take away with the youth who are being used as political thugs to cause havoc in our society. However, we believe that things will only improve when the entire capitalist state and anti-poor system is fully challenged and defeated and in its place have a socialist order wherein production and exchange are carried out democratically to meet the needs of all.