MAY WE NOT THROW AWAY THE BABY WITH THE BATH WATER:
Deacon Chike Okafor, Ph.D
Democracy flourishes when public institutions are subjected to thoughtful scrutiny. The right of citizens to interrogate power, question state actors and ventilate legitimate anxieties is not merely a procedural feature of liberal governance,it is its animating soul.Our civic space must therefore remain receptive to concerns, especially those touching on human dignity and the conduct of security agencies.
The recent surge of commentary surrounding the Tiger Base Unit of the Imo State Police Command underscores this democratic energy. Allegations of overreach and professional impropriety are gravely important and should never be trivialized.
Any institution vested with the coercive instruments of the state must at all times, operate under the canopy of law, restraint, and respect for the sanctity of life.
Yet, a discerning mind must also resist the temptation of single-lens judgment.
Our dear State,Imo did not arrive at its present atmosphere of relative tranquillity through happenstance. We emerged from a turbulent and traumatic period in which violent non-state actors fractured civic order and rendered our communities ungovernable. Reversing that dangerous and deadly era required not only institutional resolve, but steady, courageous, and deliberate leadership at the highest levels.
In this regard, Governor Hope Uzodimma merits unequivocal commendation. His focus, calmness,courage, dexterity and his administration’s security architecture, co-ordinated across federal and state platforms, has restored stability to spaces once held hostage by fear.
The evidences are empirical: normalcy has returned to markets, religious centres thrive again, social life has revived, and investment-grade confidence was visibly affirmed during the recent Imo Economic Summit, which attracted global and domestic stakeholders. These outcomes are neither accidental nor illusory.
Against this backdrop, the attempt to personally indict the Governor for the alleged transgressions of a handful of operatives within the “Tiger Base” betrays more political intent than principled advocacy. It reflects a familiar pattern: weaponising isolated misconduct to undermine a leadership that has undeniably, stabilised the state. Such manoeuvres do not advance justice, they merely inflame sentiment and obscure the real work required to strengthen our institutions.
Nonetheless, acknowledging political motivations must not be mistaken for a defence of perceived wrong doing. Any officer who violates professional codes must be subjected to due process and held accountable without equivocation. The credibility of the state depends on this. Justice,transparent, fair, and unsparing is indispensable to public trust.
What the moment demands, therefore is not a reactionary and hurriedly dismantling of a security formation that has historically contributed to what we are now enjoying as a people;the pacification of our communities and the restoration of civic life,but a sober, principled recalibration.
We must neither canonize institutions nor demonize them wholesale.
The measured middle where reform is pursued without hysteria, and accountability is enforced without political coloration is where enduring solutions reside.
Imo cannot afford the nihilism of those who in the name of critique, and in the exercising of democratic rights of opposition would plunge the state back into the abyss from which we have only recently emerged. Neither can it embrace institutional impunity which the alleged excesses of some men and officers of the Tiger Base suggests,
Our obligation is to strike a balance that honours both the imperatives of security and the inviolability of human rights.
This is the equilibrium required by a mature democracy and expected by a discerning citizenry.
May we therefore not throw away the baby with the bath water,because i fear that is exactly what this sustained and orchestrated clamour,mostly by opposition elements for the outright disbandment of the “Tiger Base” is suggesting,
May Imo State Continue to Prevail.
Deacon Chike Okafor,PhD,
A member of House of Representatives,writes from Obowo, Imo State.
