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- We Condemn The Harrassment Of Defenceless Civilians By State Sponsored Sas
- We Call For The Immediate Abrogation Of The Reign Of The “Army Of Occupation” On The Streets Of Osun-State
Recently, the Students’ Security Committee of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife received pathetic reports of sexual harassment and physical molestation being meted on innocent students residing outside the university campus. Before hand, our attention has been drawn to the activities of men of the Osun-State’s Swift Action Squad (SAS) who have illegally extended the constitutional framework of the armed forces and the police from guaranteeing the security of lives and property to the incorporation of “cultural values”. Under the influence of security uniform, and government ill-sanctioned policy, these security personnel have been battering, insulting and molesting innocent Nigerians on the premise that they do not meet “their tastes” of good dress code, walking posture, acquisition of electronic properties, good human physique and other human factors. Sadly enough, these actions which are product of a blatant legal fallacy have been extended to the innocent and defenseless students who have stayed in Ife for SIWES or medical students’ extension. First we reject the continuation of such actions. We term these actions sanctioned by the Osun State government and as perpetrated by security personnel majorly drawn from the armed force as illegal, unwarranted and superfluous.
Our rejection of this unnecessary and unlawful military attacks on ordinary citizens, especially students, is predicated on reasons ranging from legal logic to moral fallacies. Obviously the Nigeria constitution has made no equivocal error in defining the operational frame-work of military and paramilitary institutions in the country. The law has made it the primary responsibility of the armed forces to defend territorial sovereignty, and to the police and other similar constitutionally recognized policing institutions it has allotted the responsibility of maintaining law and order. All these, derived from the organic law of the land! Now the question is where the state government got the locus standi to put into security-fore, issues of private morality. Glaringly the laws of the land has never specified which cloth is legal to wear or which hairstyle to wear, neither has it stated that youths are not privy to own electronic properties nor that it is a matter of security threat for females to be naturally endowed. Then why are innocent Nigerians continually battered, molested and insulted for all these reasons when the security personnel constitutionally lack the locus standi under the law to correct these things. Apparently the government action is a legal contradiction that makes the government to act contrary to the law it has sworn to preserve by infringing on the rights of citizens instead of protecting it. It is even interesting that these actions are being perpetrated at a time when the IGP has officially banned the ill-conceived roadblocks. It is vital to remind these law-breaking “security outfit” that it is illegal and unconstitutional for security agents to arrest defenseless citizens without a warrant backed by the law, or a prior knowledge of the alleged crime he or she commits.
We are not also oblivious of the fact that the government has fallaciously predicated its action on moral and cultural values instead of the law, upon which its legitimacy is derived in the first instance. Still, appealing to moral does not save the uncalled-for actions of the SAS from illogicalities and gross superfluity. Had it been that these policy makers have considered the historical development of cultural values, they would have clearly acknowledged that cultural cum moral values are not static and that they are distinct- they vary with locations. Some decades ago in this part of the country it would be considered eccentric to see ladies in trousers, but what do we have now? A wave of change in cultural mentality and norms! For the government to be in a subjective position to determine whether a dress code is right or wrong is such a display of idleness. It only translates to subverting the always transiting nature of cultural values. In the face of global civility, the action of the state government to determine cultural values by use of force is undemocratic.
Good fated Nigerians who believe in democratic principles and the rule of law should reject this tyrannical action that is capable of making the control of States over force apparatus to degenerate into fascism. A situation where a governor would wake up one day and deploy policemen on the street to enforce grey uniform on civilians should be forestalled at this early stage of military tendencies in the Osun-State current democratic dispensation.
We demand (borne out of the fact that the uncalled-for activities of the SAS in Osun-State fail to meet up with legal and logical reasoning) that the SAS activities be checked, and be limited to the set constitutional framework guiding activities of security personnel rather than they harassing easy-going civilians out of idleness. We also warn that continual assault of any kind on students, or SAS movement on campus would not be taken slightly by great Ife students. We hence call on peace loving Nigerians to call the Osun-State government to order, before its action force students to take radical actions against it.
In conclusion, we are not opposed to good security in Osun-State, but we are rather opposed to the use of security apparatus to intimidate innocent workers, students and the poor. We hence advise the governor to concentrate on providing the good people of Osun-State qualitative security over forcing morals on them.
SIGNED
Samuel Adeolu (Com. Sammie)
Chairman, Students’ Security Committee.
