By Olu Adekunle
The Yoruba World Forum’s call for an Emergency Security Summit of kings, governors, and “prominent sons of the land” is welcome. Welcome, because it’s about time someone said the forests in Orire and across Oyo State aren’t safari parks for bandits. Not welcome because this isn’t exactly a new thought. It’s the first time in a while, which says more about us than it does about the bandits.
The guest list is impressive: Ooni of Ife, Soun of Ogbomoso, Alaafin of Oyo, Olubadan, Deji of Akure, Alake, Oba of Lagos, the six Southwest governors, Gani Adams, Sunday Igboho. The rumoured agenda is sensible: clear the forests, get kidnap victims out alive, arm Amotekun properly, bring hunters and forest guards into one system.
The problem? We’ve read this script before. The 2021 meetings produced statements. Banditry produced more victims. At some point, communiqués become background noise.
For years, bandits set up shop in Oke-Ogun, Ibarapa, and the forest corridors running into Kwara and Kogi. Yoruba royalty watched. Maybe it was politics. Maybe it was the constitutional leash on traditional rulers — no police, no army, just moral weight. But moral weight is not nothing. When the Alaafin, Ooni, or Soun speak with one voice, people move. If that voice had been consistent and loud before the forests were colonized, we wouldn’t be negotiating for the lives of Yawota victims today.
Silence was safer. Confronting governors and Abuja is awkward. So the land waited. And paid for it.
Whether this proposed summit ends in action, or more photo-ops depends on whether this summit breaks the cycle. Nigerians are fluent in “resolutions.” We’re illiterate in follow-through. If this meeting ends with a 12-point communiqué and no timeline, it won’t just fail. It will prove to people that both traditional and political leadership are better at optics than outcomes.
There are four things that should make the summit matter and none of them requires a press release writer:
1. A real operational plan:
Amotekun can’t secure forests with cutlasses and good intentions. Push for the legal and logistical backing to arm them within state and federal frameworks. Formalize hunters and forest guards, give them training, coordination, and someone to answer to. Toothless watchdogs don’t deter armed gangs.
2. One command, no politics:
Gani Adams and Sunday Igboho working at cross-purposes is a case study in how not to do self-defense. Build a civilian oversight structure that puts Obas, governors, and community security groups under one strategy. No more parallel armies pretending it’s coordination.
3. Timelines and transparency:
Demand the release of kidnap victims with a clear deadline and pressure on security agencies. Mandate a coordinated “forest combing” exercise with dates, and force monthly public updates. If there’s nothing to update, people will know.
4. Address the state police question head-on:
State police has been proposed for years and, conveniently, the federal government has “tentatively accepted” it whenever public anger spikes.
However, handing policing powers solely to state governors without guardrails is like giving car keys to someone who’s already been caught speeding in a school zone. The same governors who use state resources for private militias, who silence critics with task forces, who can’t pay salaries but can fund billboards — you want them running armed units?
That’s a recipe for localized tyranny, not security. We’ve seen how quickly “community policing” becomes “opposition policing” when there’s no independent oversight.
The other truth is that Nigeria’s centralized policing model is structurally incapable of securing 36 states and 774 LGAs. Abuja cannot micromanage kidnappings in Oke-Ogun and banditry in Zamfara at the same time.
If properly managed, state police is the most viable frontline strategy we have. The fix isn’t to abandon it. It’s to design it so governors don’t own it outright. Independent state policing commissions, joint federal-state oversight, transparent recruitment, and real accountability mechanisms. Without that, you’re just decentralizing abuse. With it, you get a force that knows the terrain, speaks the language, and can respond in hours, not weeks.
On the whole, the pain of kidnappings and killings isn’t exclusive to the Southwest. It’s no more painful in Ibadan than it is in Birnin Gwari. Blood doesn’t check ethnicity before it spills.
So if we’re serious, this summit can’t remain a Yoruba affair. It should be made national. Put all prominent royalty and citizens from every nationality in the room — Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Fulani, Kanuri, Tiv, everyone. Converge, stop pretending insecurity respects borders, and demand result-oriented action from government. Not another round of “we condemn” and photo ops.
The Yoruba have always protected their land through council and consensus. The Obas aren’t soldiers, but they are the custodians of the people’s conscience. If this summit becomes another talk shop, the people will draw their own conclusions about where loyalty actually lies.
Yorubaland doesn’t need more meetings. Nigeria doesn’t need more regional grief sessions. It needs coordinated action, political will, and leaders who speak before the forests are occupied, not after.
Olu Adekunle is a Public Policy Analyst & Public Affairs Commentator and he writes from Abuja.
