DISTURBED by the public outcry against the activities of Community Development Associations in parts of Edo State, the Oba of Benin Kingdom Oba Ewuare II during his coronation last October championed the proscription of activities of the group in Edo State in the overall interest of peace and community development.

Expectedly, the Edo State, House of Assembly swung into action and came up with a bill and sent it to the state governor who on April 12, 2017 assented to it which is now “Edo State law to Prohibit Forcible Entry and Illegal Occupation of Landed Properties, Violent and Fraudulent Conduct in Relation to Landed Properties, Proscribe the Collection of Land Based Community Development Fees, Levies, etc by Community Development Associations and any other Groups in Edo State”.

In Pursuance of the law, the government constituted and inaugurated a 12-man committee christened “Private Properties Protection (PPP) Committee” and appointed the immediate past Inspector –General of Police (IGP) Solomon Arase as its chairman.

In this engagement with our crime reporter MIKE OSAROGIAGBON, the chairman reveals some strategies the committee has adopted to drive its mandate.

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May we know you sir?

I am Dr. Solomon Ehigiator Igbe Arase, Igbe is a compound name. Arase is the name I am known for in the Nigerian space. A retired Inspector-General of Police, so, I am a retiree. I am into legal practice and security consultancy.
Recently the state Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki signed the Private Properties Protection Bill into law, proscribing the activities of CDAs in Edo State. The government also constituted a committee and appointed you as its chairman.

What is the mandate of that committee?

Well, if you take a look at the activities of the now extinct CDAs, if you try and align them with international best practices, their activities abintio was to initially to draw development to their various communities but it later snowballed into militancy, kidnapping, arms trafficking, cultism and all that. So if you want to situate that after the historic al perspective of what the CDA was supposed to achieve initially, you can, pigeon hole it into that. But when it became something inimical to the socio-economic development of the state then the Oba on his coronation day felt that it was stiffening development and discouraging sons and daughters of the state from investing and open up the economic and social space of the state.

So the new law is to look at all these things and see how we can streamline the activities of the group and make sure there is peace and development in the state.

Let us look at it from a position where the Oba outlawed it. There has to also be a legal framework for that executive order that was given to have a legal backing. That is why the private properly protection law was crafted by the executive and taken through the House of Assembly to take a look at it and say what are the activities? Who are the people involved in these things? How will their operations be? How do we manage our land issues.

How can we manage it in such a way that it does not become something that is inimical to the economic growth of the state?

What should Edo people expect from this committee?

The perspective of the committee is hinged on four points. The first is the Law enforcement – the law that has been put in place has to be enforced. Anybody that breaches it has to go through the process of criminal justice.

The second is the hearts and minds approach. How do we create jobs for the people, the foot soldiers who have been involved in this aberration. You don’t dislodge people without creating alternatives for them. You can draw parallels in the country.

Look at the way the issue of the Niger-Delta was handled. Wherever State coercive apparatus is deployed to deal with a socially endemic problem what you will get is commensurate resistance. People will always want to resist. It’s a means of livelihood for them. Sometimes, they make a lot of money from it, they build houses, engage in other activities, buy cars, travel out of the country, and all that.

So, if you are going to solve a problem like that, you must plan first. The Niger-Delta, even the Boko-Haram are examples. If you have read the book ‘Why Men Rebel’ it states that whenever excessive force is deployed, the people tend to rebel. So that is the second perspective.

The third perspective is, community partnership. How can you get the Enigie, Edionwere, Ohen, the youths of those areas and other non state actors to sit down together. One of the biggest resources we have in Edo is the land, that is the biggest resource we have.

How do we all sit down and say, this is within our own geographical location. If we are going to give it out, what are the processes of giving it out. That’s why I say, there must be a way to streamline these issues; if you sell the same land to Mr. B, same land to Mr. C. all we are just doing is creating a very chaotic situation, whereby people start fighting themselves. When you have a land in your community and you sell it to about ten people, what you are asking for is anarchy. Whoever is able to deploy violence to overwhelm the other wins the game.

You know, this man paid and the value he paid for the land was commensurate to the value of the land, but that is not what we are doing.

The fourth perspective is getting the security agencies to do their job. The committee is not supposed to start going to clamp down on people, investigating, arresting, no! We don’t have such powers. We have to go through the people who are mandated, whose original mandate it is, to handle issues like that. The police are in the fore-front, then we talk about other security agencies. We must be able to know where they are buying, that’s exactly what we are trying to do. In case people want to report, like if they take your land, you go to the police station, the IPO there will encourage you to go and settle people who have forcefully taken your land. He is supposed to look at it, if any criminal acts have been carried out, to ensure that the criminal act is dealt with according to the law; But to just say ‘these people are crazy people, go and settle with them.” is wrong. We believe this is not the right thing to do, these are the four strategic plans that we intend to implement.

So in other words, what is the function of this committee?

It is strategic

Ok, can we say the committee is in the position of receiving petitions?

No, what I want to discourage is that, you cannot create an alternative law enforcement agency, with a committee. What I mean by that is that, if somebody has done something, you can send it to us; we’ll have a group of investigations under our control, we’ll go to these areas, pick up the case, investigate it. We have people from the judiciary who are members of the committee, we’ll take things down to make sure that an offence has been committed.

Then we’ll send it for persecution. So that’s how it is supposed to be. As members of the committee, we cannot take on the duty of investigation.

The investigative arm will be under us, we can control it and direct what they have to do but the people who are mandated to do that job are the police force and the judiciary.

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How do you intend to deploy your experience in this regard?

I have given you my perspective.

Because some persons might want to bend the law, even by way of investigation?

No. the investigation team will be under our control, they will report to the committee.

Who will charge the matter to court if need be?

It will be the DPP, we will do the case file, duplicate and send it to the DPP. The cases will not go to the magistrate court; they will go to the High Court. In other words, it is going to be a state case and that same body will make arrest if need be and report to committee. The police officers are going to be the ones who will take the statement, get witnesses, confirm that this issue has happened, get measurement, (we have a surveyor) we’ll give them all the things that they require. The composition of the committee is such that we’ll bring all our wealth of experience here.

How can members of the public reach the committee?

That is what we are trying to solve out, we want to make it easy. We want to create complaint room that will be technologically driven, so you don’t have to start writing petitions. You can call that complaint room, then the people will report to the committee to say this complaints came from this area. Then we will deploy the resources to go to these areas. The governor has also appointed special assistants for all wards. So we will use those people as a way of compiling complaints from these various wards, sending it to the complaints centre. We settle those that we can settle there are some that we can adjudicate on; we can call the parties and try and settle them when it becomes intractable and the committee cannot handle it we refer it for full blown investigation.

Will the youths still have a place in this new order?

Yes, we want to profile them, we want to have their bio data, their skills, everything about them. If for instance you have somebody who was doing carpentry or pop, or tiles and he was involved in that thing, (CDA), (the government said they are setting up technical schools) we will create avenues for those people to go and perfect their skills in that place. For those ones who believe that they are farmers, we will give them land under the state agricultural initiative and help the government to give them loans to go and cultivate the land, and get the land prepared for them. It’s a win situation for them. Definitely we know there might be some resistance. For those who want to try the might of the committee the full weight of the law will be on them.

Nobody wants to deploy force, as a first line of solving problem. This is not only in Edo State, it’s in Lagos, It’s everywhere, they do these things, but in handling them, force should not be the first option. To me, it should be the last. For instance, we all whoever is involved, we look at it and if we feel it can be resolved in the favour of Mr. B, we let it go.

Does the committee have a timeframe?

There is no timeline, once you get everybody to be on the same page with you, the problem will not be there.
Is there any scope to cover, assuming some persons who were aggrieved some years ago come to you, would you still attempt to settle such?

It will depend on the merit of the case. Sometimes when you want to buy something ‘they say, buyers beware’ if you don’t take precautions you deliberately know that this thing was wrong and you still went into it we won’t support such. The position of the law does not support people who went into a transaction blind folded, it doesn’t work that way. I’m a security expert. Everything will be done in such a way that we don’t make the government look stupid, as if they are encouraging criminality.

In all these put together, do you think the issue of community crisis will come to an end in Edo?

There is no such thing as a crimeless society, sociologically speaking. It’s something you manage. There must be mechanism for managing crisis.

What is your word for community CDA members that perhaps are kind of jobless now?

We’ll reach out to them. We’ll ensure that they are rehabilitated. There are several ways to give them job placement; the government is creating a lot of avenues for them to get jobs.

Let us look at likely challenges?

There will be challenges; nobody wants to be uprooted from sources where they think they are making benefits. So if you are into a business where you are making a lot of money and somebody wants to hinder you, definitely you will want to fight back. Then the communities where these things take place may serve as a challenge.

After the sensitization of the Enigie and Edionwere, what next?

We have to mobilize them and assist them to deal with their problems.

Has the government given you an office?

Yes, we have been given an office in the government house where the Secretariat will be.

I don’t need an office but the secretary and the others will need an office, they can always go there once in a while to hold meetings.

It is just a way of offering community service to my state.