The Yoruba leader, Prof Akintoye also said that the launching of Amotekun was not to break up the country, and commended the governors for the initiative, saying: “What is happening today is that Yoruba people under the leadership of their elected governors have stepped forward to provide higher level of protection to their people in their farms and their homes. Thank you so much and I want to assure you that you have our support. You have the support of the Yoruba people and you will continue to have our support. There might be some difficulties along the way, but be assured that we will stand by you to make it a beautiful success for our people. “Some people are asking how the police are going to be relating with Amotekun, but don’t forget that we are being led by highly educated people, they are going to fashion out their relationship properly so that Amotekun and the police will work without conflict. There won’t be conflict. “To the young people that will be working with Amotekun, listen carefully to your trainers. Follow their instructions. Do not operate on your own inventions. Do what your trainers ask you to do. You are servants of a Yoruba nation. Stand firm and defend Yoruba nation.” Alawe of Ilawe Ekiti, Oba Adebanji Alabi, also enjoined the governors to ensure that funding does not become a problem for the Western Nigeria Security Network, adding that multinational companies in the region could also support the initiative.
A former Commissioner of Police in Lagos and Benue states, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, who is the current Special Adviser on Security to Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, said it was worrisome that people had been corrupting the interpretation of what Operation Amotekun stands for. His words: “What is Amotekun? It is neighborhood watch for the Southwest. There is a neighborhood watch in Lagos. The British Government through the DFID (Department for International Development) also has a template, which they introduced as voluntary policing sector, which in other words, is called the vigilante. The police have been working with the vigilante groups all along.
So, practically what was done with the launch of Operation Amotekun is to formalize the support, the assistance that the non-state actors are giving to the conventional security people. There is nothing more than that. “We have seen it work in Lagos State. I was the Commissioner of Police in Lagos State when the Neighborhood Watch was created. Has Neighborhood Watch taken over the job of the conventional security agencies in Lagos? “When the IGP came for the Southwest Security Summit, he said the police would support the Southwest with special intervention force, which would be coordinated or headed by a Commissioner of Police. Some of the elements of that have been deployed. What the Southwest is doing is to support what the IGP has done. Those fellows that are being used as what I will call Neighborhood Watch, which the Southwest has codenamed Amotekun, are familiar with the terrain. And that is the advantage we are having. Some of them know all the nooks and crannies. The facts that vehicles were displayed do not mean that it is only the vehicles they will use. Motorcycles were even purchased.”
Asked if the WNSN will have the power to arrest and prosecute, Owoseni explained that every citizen has the power of arrest and when “you arrest, take to the police station. The Amotekun will not operate detention facility. It should just be taken as non-state actors participating in securing the people. There is no one that said they would be armed. Even, in the locations we live, we have guards that carry dane-guns if it is necessary for them to use some of those things. The hunters carry their dane-guns with their dogs and those are their tools.” He stated further that the headquarters of the DAWN Commission at Cocoa House, Ibadan, would be the headquarters of Amotekun because the operations would be coordinated by the commission.
Speaking on the recruitment of personnel, the Director General of DAWN Commission, Mr. Seye Oyeleye, said that it would be done on state basis, and the number of personnel that Oyo State would engage might be higher than some other states in the region. On remuneration, Oyeleye stated that no personnel of Amotekun would earn below N30, 000 national minimum wages, adding that members of the public should discard the speculation that N13, 500 has been proposed as monthly salary for the personnel of Operation Amotekun.
Operation Amotekun, best thing to happen in history of Yoruba – Salvador
Lagos – Honorable Moshood Salvador, a chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), has said that Operation Amotekun, the security outfit set up by the governors of the six South-West states, is the best thing that has ever happened in the history of the Yoruba people. Salvador, while speaking with select journalists on Tuesday, maintained that the initiative is appropriate and that in a federal system, all sorts of security agencies and arrangements were needed and Operation Amotekun would just be an addition. “If they know that the people who would constitute membership of the Western Nigeria Security Networks, or Amotekun are protecting the people living in South-West region, there would be fear from outsiders, who would want to come and perpetuate evil in the region, and mere hearing that Amotekun is on ground, would be enough security for us,” he said. The former Lagos State chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said he was not surprised people were against it, pointing out that human beings were capable of anything.
Amotekun: Yoruba has taken her place in history
Amotekun is the beginning of the fight for Southern emancipation from the strangulation of Fulani oligarchy and propulsive move to disintegrate the country, which the Northerners have sworn will happen over their dead bodies because of Niger Delta oil wealth. We needed a major ethnic group like the Yoruba to make that statement and to take a bold stand against the Fulani banditry ethnic group. Amotekun, as the open sesame should serve as impetus and encouragement to the South-South, South-Eastern and the Middle-Belt Regions, who are the major victims of Fulani barbarity where their loved ones are raped and slaughtered right before them on a daily basis. Nothing impresses me more than the Yoruba Elders’ response to Miyetti Allah criminal threat that Amotekun would cost South West 2023 presidency if it is not disbanded. The response was “To hell with it.” That’s to say the Yoruba wouldn’t be tenants in their own land in the face of the rampaging murderous Fulani migrants, henceforth. By the way, who needs presidency in a broken and vanquished nation where the lives of citizens are cheaper than sachets water (pure water)? Whether the North likes it or not, Nigeria has outlived its usefulness after forceful amalgamation and abominable contraption called Nigeria. The Yoruba people of South West Nigeria have won this battle without a single gunshot. We’re waiting for the rest region earlier mentioned to step into the line of freedom from the Fulani enslavement.
I once described the Yoruba race as a people that relish their language and identity, reverence their culture and tradition with supremo glamour and, utmost conviviality in the spirit of ethnic solidarity. The political leadership of Yoruba race and non-political actors has never betrayed their own people. The governors of Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo and Osun States in South West Region have made the loudest and courageous statement with the establishment of Amotekun security outfit to protect their own people since the ethically compromised and ragtag federal police and military look the other way while Nigerians are slaughtered daily by Fulani marauding beasts across the country.
The freckling federal government, Attorney General of the federation and Miyetti Allah who have been vacillating have yet to tell Nigerians the difference between the Hisbad security outfits in Kano, Katsina, Nassarawa and many other Northern states and Amotekun in the South West. Nigerians and the world need clarification on this from the power-grabbing Northern overlords. Calling the bluff of the Hausa-Fulani’s oligarchy and its registered militant group Miyetti Allah, Kautal certainly sends shivers through the marrow of the power-lust Northern political elites.
Governor Rotimi Akerodolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) of Ondo State did not disappoint his people for the sake of political correctness. He did it in the past during the ill-fated NBA Annual conference in Port Harcourt in 1991. The governors of the six South Western States have shown time and again that they’re leaders to be trusted and men of tremendous capacity, courage, immense sagacity and wisdom who stand to protect their land and its people against Fulani invaders, a people whose leaders have abandoned to their own detriment in the North. As we speak, one twelfth of all the states in the North is convulsing under Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen and armed bandits. The question is why is the Fulani oligarchy so worried and scared about Amotekun in far way Southern Nigeria? Why are they in panic mode?
Did Amotekun exposed them as the terrorists and sponsors of terrorism against the innocent people of Nigeria, especially Christians and other Non-Muslims? Strictly speaking, Amotekun has given Fulani Herdsmen sponsors as the enemies of the country. Better still, the Fulani terrorists gave themselves away in their panic-stricken attempt to condemn and decommission Amotekun in the face of obvious security threats. Any surprise that Miyetti Allah is not bothered that the Northern elite, over the years, have used political and military powers to suppress and pauperize the region, and made beggars out of millions of their youths who are daily transported to the Southern part of the country to unleash mayhem and terror. There shouldn’t have been Miyetti Allah itself in the first place if the Northern political leadership had used their long stay in power to education and equip their people.
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