…As Students, corps members march through Enugu, vow to reject cultism, crime, violent extremism
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!There was something unusually symbolic about the sight of young people taking to the streets of Enugu on Friday, not in protest against government, but in a declaration of war against the forces that threaten the peace of their society.
Students, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members and other young residents marched through major streets of the Enugu metropolis before converging on Government House, where they were received by Governor Peter Mbah.
Their message was simple, emphatic and without ambiguity: terrorism has no constituency among them; criminality has no future in Enugu; and young people will no longer stand on the sidelines while violence corrodes society.
The demonstration was, in effect, a public declaration of support for the security campaign of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Federal Government and the Enugu State Government.
Receiving the protesters, Governor Mbah described their action as both profound and instructive, noting that it represented a reversal of the conventional relationship between government and citizens.
“For you to march through the streets and end here preaching the message against crime and terrorism is profound. Ordinarily, we should be the ones preaching to you against such vices,” Mbah said.
“But by this act, you are telling us that you are not going to be on the fringes or stand by and watch. Rather, you are going to be at the forefront of the campaign against cultism, crime and terrorism.”
For Mbah, the security question is not an issue to be treated as an afterthought. He said security was one of the recurring risk factors identified by his administration while defining the developmental foundations of Enugu State.
That, he explained, informed the decision to confront insecurity from the beginning of his administration.
The governor also sought to place the youth mobilisation within the larger philosophy of his administration, insisting that his “Tomorrow Is Here” mantra was not another convenient political phrase designed for campaign posters and election speeches.
It is, he said, a commitment to preparing and empowering the generation that will inherit the state.
Mbah argued that the more young people become stakeholders in the fight against crime, the less room criminal networks would have to recruit, operate and thrive.
A reduction in criminality, he said, would equally free resources that could otherwise be deployed to job creation, education and poverty reduction.
He pointed to experiences in some countries where significant reductions in crime had resulted in the closure of correctional facilities, suggesting that Nigeria, too, could achieve a fundamental transformation if citizens—particularly young people—took ownership of the campaign for a safer society.
The governor said Enugu had adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards criminality, stressing that security was inseparable from economic development.
A peaceful Enugu, he maintained, would be more attractive to investors, create more opportunities and trigger wider economic benefits.
He therefore challenged the youths not to confine their campaign to the state capital.
He urged them to take the message into communities, campuses and neighbourhoods across Enugu, so that the campaign would become a social movement rather than a one-day spectacle.
The message, he said, should be clear enough for every young person to understand: criminality must no longer be fashionable.
Government, Mbah added, would reinforce the campaign through non-kinetic interventions, including job creation, investment in education and the expansion of digital skills opportunities.
“Your campaign is heartwarming. When citizens apply scholarly and constructive approaches, government will be glad to engage them constructively and productively too,” he said.
Earlier, the leader of the march and Deputy Rector of the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu, Dr Emeka Ejim, described the coalition as a broad-based youth movement comprising students and corps members united by a common determination to confront crime, cultism and terrorism.
Ejim pledged the group’s support for the state’s security architecture, noting that Enugu had combined kinetic measures with non-kinetic interventions such as skills acquisition and employment initiatives.
“We pledge never to join bad groups within and outside Nigeria. We are joining you against terrorism,” he declared.
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) also threw its weight behind the campaign.
The Enugu State leader of NANS, Okeke Kelvin, said the association would mobilise no fewer than two million youths in support of the anti-terror campaign.
“This is the only way we can show you that we are against terror. We say no to terrorism,” Kelvin said.
He commended the state government for its investments in security infrastructure, citing the Command and Control Centre, Centre for DNA Forensics and Criminal Investigation and the Distress Response Squad, among others.
According to him, the infrastructure was already producing results.
He cited the recent security response to an attempted criminal operation in Affa, Udi, arguing that the incident demonstrated the shrinking space for kidnappers and other criminal elements in the state.
For some of the NYSC members who spoke at the event, however, the story was more personal.
Olaranju Oreose, a corps member from the South-West, said his experience in Enugu had fundamentally changed the apprehensions he initially had about coming to the South-East.
“I have been in Enugu from January till now, and I want to say that my journey and experience so far here has been wonderful in terms of security,” he said.
He recalled that he initially feared travelling such a long distance to Enugu but said his experience had since changed his perception.
Emmanuela Momoh similarly expressed appreciation for the prevailing atmosphere of peace and security.
And perhaps therein lies the deeper significance of Friday’s march.
Beyond the banners, speeches and political symbolism was an emerging proposition: that security cannot belong exclusively to the police, the military or the government.
It must also belong to the citizen.
And when young people, the very demographic most vulnerable to recruitment by criminal networks, begin to publicly declare that they will not join the ranks of terror, cultism and violent extremism, the battle acquires a different character.
Enugu’s youths have made their choice.
They are saying no to terror. No to criminality. And no to a future defined by fear.
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