[EDITORIAL] Incessant Killings: A Disease We No Longer Can Bear

It has gotten clearly out of hand and the litany of murders is unacceptable. In recent times in the otherwise peaceful State of Osun, there have been series of gruesome murder in the state. There are reported cases of two mutilated Uniosun students with the later apprehension of the perpetrators and their accomplice. Other ritualists have been arrested in their hide-outs in Aagba, Gbongan and other locales where camped in mates regained their freedom in the state. A motorcyclist was also arrested in connection to the killings of the children of the same parent. And another was arrested with human body parts around Oluode area, Osogbo.

These events clearly portray a dysfunction in the internal security mechanism. It must be acknowledged that the Governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has gone the extra mile in budget allocations to gear up effective policing in the state. The appropriate infrastructures including armoured tanks have been provided. Unfortunately, under Nigeria’s glaringly defective quasi-federalism he is the Chief Security officer of the state only in name (or is it in sarcasm?), the real operational mechanisms are outside his control and supervision.

This is a critical issue that must be sorted out as soon as there is any genuine opportunity to revamp our constitution. In this vein, we must ask for the inclusion of whistleblower law, rewards and consequent protection to safeguard them and their identity to be made as they help expose the nefarious activities of cultists and kidnappers. Such a policy will help the police to up the ante and strengthen its intelligence gathering mechanism, thereby allowing it to be pro-active. The not-good-enough alternative if these killings fail to stop is a culture of mob violence as an exasperated populace takes the law into their own hands. This is of course at variance with the tenor of a civilized society and must not be allowed to happen.

Finally, we must ask the censor boards and the regulators to have a look at the movie scenes. Nobody wants censorship. Nevertheless, the state cannot sit arms akimbo and allow all manners of anti-social behaviour to be induced into young and innocent children who then takes what they view into practice at their own discretion. The sort of gory scenes and contrived nonsense peddled in movie scenes must be modulated. If those in charge of Nollywood and other entertainment industries across the globe cannot do the vitally needed self-regulation, then the state must step in and do the job for them.

In the last analysis, the underlying problem remains that of poverty and limited economic opportunities. For this reason, governments at all levels must place job creations, skills upgrade, poverty eradication and mass quality education in the heart of its economic policies. This is the only long-term and enduring solution.