Nigeria, March 12 -- When six states in Nigeria's South-West zone came together in January 2020 to create Amotekun, a regional security outfit, to confront social ills spreading across the region, they weren't reinventing the wheel, despite the political fanfare.

They were re-enacting a past that seemed so far back it had been forgotten altogether - a policing structure that died in 1966, after the Unification Decree abolished Nigeria's federalism. That decree consolidated political, social and economic structures into a single chain of command and control, following the termination of the First Republic in a military coup.

Once Upon a Refuge

It is noteworthy that when Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Chukwuma Nzeogwu and co. struck, the most...