The Yoruba World Congress, an umbrella organisation for Yoruba nationals, has rejected the plans to place the Western Nigeria Security Outfit, “Operation Amotekun”, under the control of the Inspector General of Police and Nigeria Police Force.
This was contained in a statement on Sunday, titled “Yoruba World Congress supports Akeredolu, Makinde on Amotekun”, signed by the group’s President, Prof. Banji Akintoye.
The YWC reinforced the stand of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and his Oyo State counterpart, Seyi Makinde, that the Amotekun shall not be subsumed under the control of the IGP.
The statement read in part, “Amotekun, as rightly posited by the governors, is an independent security outfit necessitated by the clear danger of murderous herdsmen internationally accepted as terrorists, heartless bandits and sundry criminals who have turned Yorubaland into killing fields.
“It was also the failure of the existing security architecture to tackle the menace and secure life and property in the South West region that led to the clamour for Amotekun by the generality of our people.
“It makes no sense, therefore, to put the same Amotekun under an organisation that has proved incapable and inadequate to provide the much-needed security in the first place.
“Putting Amotekun under the Nigerian Police hierarchy is a ploy to weaken it and sabotage the strident clamour of the people of the South West for peace and security in their homeland.
“It must be noted that the entire South West rose like one man to demand and support Amotekun and to resist all efforts to truncate its birth.
“We, therefore, see the efforts to twist the hands of Yoruba governors to whittle down Amotekun as a continuation of the same ploy to abort this regional security outfit.
“We salute the stance, courage and principled stand of Governors Akeredolu and Makinde on the independence of Amotekun and call on other South West governors to follow suit.
“We also call on all Yoruba sons and daughters at home and abroad to stand up in support of Amotekun and speak out against efforts or plans to muffle it.
“We demand that the security of the South West must not be compromised in any form and under any guise.
“We, therefore, call on those trying to toy with Amotekun to desist forthwith.
“We have the inalienable right to security of life and property.
“We therefore stand solidly with the South West governors as they strive to protect life and property.
“As a federation, different layers of security outfits should collaborate, rather than one outfit trying to prevent the others from contributing their own quota.
“The Nigerian constitution supports supplementary security outfits as has been the case in parts of Northern Nigeria.
“The central policing system has failed. A community and or multi-layer security system is an idea whose time has come.
“Trying to prevent it is like swimming against the tide with dire consequences.”
PUNCH
