Amotekun: Why Southwest is right

The establishment of regional security network in the south-west region of Nigeria continues to elicit reactions from different places and background.  The recent comment was that of the Minister of Justice who described the outfit as unconstitutional and illegal. According to him no state whether singly or in a group has the legal right and competence to establish any form of organization or agency for the defence of Nigeria or any of its constituent parts.

The chairman, Nigerian Governors Forum and governor of Ekiti State, Rotimi Akeredou said Amotekun is a complement that will give the people confidence that they are being looked after  by those they elected into office.

This clarification summarized the rationale behind the security structure in the region. The insecurity issues that culminated into Operation Amotekun bordered on the rampant kidnapping, banditry and armed robbery cases in many states in the southwest region.

Yorubas are good students of insecurity in the North. They carefully observed how the insurgency destroyed the socio-economic development of North-East and how deadly transnational bandits are operating in the north-west region. So, they don’t want their region to fall in the same trap, which is what prompted them to proactively plan ahead of any hidden plan or agenda by the so called transnational bandits.

To be fair to Yorubaland, Nigeria is in the unpredictable era where the official security architecture fails woefully to secure the lives and properties of Nigerians.   It might not be in the Nigerian constitution, but since security is not properly networked, it’s a right step. No one would have seen or heard any Amotekun if the Nigeria security are doing the necessary and needful. It is not right to condemn the west for designing what they believe will solve the insecurity challenges in their communities. It is equally not right to compare Amotekun with Hisbah which is a religious group working to bring morality among the Muslims communities. There is no law backing the existence of the Hisbah in some states of the northern region but the group is not established to provide security in the communities.

In another way round, some people are comparing Amotekun with Civilian JTF in the north-east region. They tend to forget that almost each region has its vigilance group. To those who are afraid of Amotekun, it may because the country has for long been divided among ethnic lines which makes it to be more of a regional entity than national. To them, it seems Amotekun established to fight the settlers, especially Fulani Herdsmen that are always at loggerheads with some of the communities, especially in Ekiti, Ondo and Oyo states.

Whatever their reason, Amotekun as the South-West security architecture should not bear arms in any form since it is not officially recognized by law. The southwest governors should also sensitize people more on their intention in order to curb the fear in the mind of the people.

Operatives of Amotekun should be well trained and guided to address the insecurity issues assigned to them and not become tools for politicians to harass some people.

Another thing to put into consideration is the issue of human rights abuse. It mostly common among the vigilance groups since they are not professionally trained.

Idris Mohammed,

Sokoto.