There are indications that the Nigeria Army may continue with its nationwide exercise christened “Operation Positive Identification (OPI) following an endorsement by the House of Representatives.
But the Army has kept mum on the status of the operation weeks after its scheduled commencement.
It would be recalled that the army had announced that the operation will require Nigerians to go about with their identity card.
According to the Army, the operation is part of efforts at combating the threats of criminal insurgency and terrorism, armed banditry, kidnapping, herdsmen-farmers clashes, cultism, and communal crises, amongst others.
However, the exercise has been heavily, criticised, with many Nigerians describing it as a usurpation of the responsibility of the police, which is the lead agency in internal security.
Among the lot is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, who had approached the court challenging the constitutional powers of the army to embark on ‘Operation Positive Identification’.
BDSUNDAY recalls that Falana had anchored his argument against the exercise on the premise, that it will breach the fundamental rights of citizens.
Efforts to get the Army’s reaction on the development were not successful, as at the time of filing this report, as its spokesperson, Colonel Sagir Musa, neither picked calls, nor replied to text messages sent to him.
However, security experts have cautioned the Army on the planned operation, saying internal security remained the duty of the Police.
A former Commissioner of Police, CP, in charge of the Federal Capital Territory, Lawrence Alobi, who weighed-in on the matter, maintained that the exercise offended democratic principles.
According to him “Section 217 of the constitution is very clear on the role of the military. They are not supposed to be actively involved in internal security except they were asked to assist. Internal security is the job of the police. The issue of stopping, searching and asking people to present their identity card is not the function of the military at all anywhere in the world. In the United States were we borrowed the presidential system from, there is an act prohibiting the military participating in internal security.
If the government is looking for illegal aliens then it’s the immigration. If you are talking of kidnapping, crimes like robbery, it is the police.
“The military should concentrate on their military function because, this are the things that brings about conflict because people will begin to think that they are militarising our law enforcing and policing in this country. Even militarising democracy itself. It is dangerous to our democracy. Every institution has its mandate and people should keep to their mandate. It should be only when an institution desire the assistance of the other, that they should come in an assist”.
Alobi admonished the Army to obey the order of court as, according to him, the rule of law remained supreme.
On his part, Been Okezie, described as “wrong”, the timing of the operation.
“The timing is even wrong. This thing ought to have been done since when the issue of Boko Haram was just coming up so that when they are been bombarded over there, and they are coming into town, you can now identify them and then arrest them.
“As for operation positive identification, I thought it should be restricted more to the northern area not coming to the south or to the East.
“I think the operatives were not properly briefed on what to do and where to draw the line. Many of them went out and then started extorting the public. Once you are championing a noble cause and it gets to a point where u start extorting money and inconveniencing the people, they will shout and once that happens, it means there will be problem with the operations. That is why many ideas of government though laudable, but didn’t see the light of day”.
Stella Enenche, Abuja
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