By OKECHUKWU KESHI UKEGBU

There is a common axiom that “heaven helps those who help themselves", like the lepers did in the Bible when they were under serious siege by the Syrians.

In extreme situations, people break out from their comfort zones to proffer solutions to their problems. Folding their arms to expect the proverbial manner from heaven does not pay most times.

This is the situation in the South-East where most communities have resorted to self-help security initiatives to secure their forests, especially during the farming season, to make sure that these spaces are secured to allow farmers to carry out farming activities. These spaces initially have been ungoverned and taking over by criminal elements.

This self-help security initiative is both laudable and commendable. It has gone a long way in checking the unwholesome activities of some criminal elements who have converted some forests in the South-East to ungoverned spaces.

Due to inadequate manpower of the conventional police which rendered the ability of the force to man every space in the country ineffective, communities in the South-East have resorted to this self-help initiative by engaging their able-bodied youths in policing functions to flush out criminal elements from their forests, at least to temporarily make those spaces safe, if not for any other period, the farming season.

But inasmuch as this initiative is commendable, much is also left unattended in the security arrangements in the country. Nothing will be more adequate than the government paying genuine attention to police reform to ensure an effective police force that will respond adequately to the policing needs of the citizenry.

A situation whereby the citizens resort to self-help policing arrangements is an aberration and should not be encouraged.

Even the self-help initiatives are characterised by wide gaps because, most times, the persons recruited to serve this purpose turn out to be criminal elements themselves if their activities were not properly checked.

Their recruited process is highly faulted and lacks integrity. Policing at all levels, both at the ancillary level and conventional levels is all about the integrity of the personnel. If this component is missing, a critical link is missing, and it constitutes a serious vacuum.

Sometimes they become willing tools in the hands of the traditional rulers who divert their functions to witch-hunting real and perceived enemies.

All the same, the efforts are laudable and commendable, at least to temporarily fill the yawning gap, but a lot more needs to be done to harness the entire process.

•Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu, a public policy analyst, writes from Aba, via keshiafrica@gmail.com