South West Houses of Assembly get Amotekun bill coming week

Houses of Assembly in the six states of the South West will from next (this) week begin scrutiny of the law backing the establishment of the Western Nigeria Security Network known as “Operation Amotekun”.

Attorney General of Oyo State, Professor Oyelowo Oyewo, made this known at the end of a meeting of all Attorneys General of the South West to evolve the Amotekun legal framework, held in Ibadan, on Friday night.

The draft bill to the Houses of Assembly will see each state establish its own Amotekun corps while local intelligence will form the basis of the operational manual for the corps.

On the modus operandi of the Amotekun corps, Oyelowo said the recruited personnel will be guided by existing constitutional regulations on the usage of arms.

Furthermore, he stressed that the Amotekun corps will complement the existing security agencies while there will be collaboration among state corps in their operation.

On legality of Amotekun, he added that the governors abided by provisions of section 14 of the nation’s constitution which gives them the duty of security.

Present at the meeting were Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Osun State, Akande Oluwafemi, and his counterparts from Ondo (Kola Olawoye, SAN), Ogun (Akingbolahan Adeniran), and Ekiti (Olawale Fapohunda). The Attorney-General of Lagos State, Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN) represented at the meeting by the Director of Civil Litigations, Mr. Adebisi Quadri.

“The meeting of the Attorney-Generals of the six south west states just concluded and we deliberated on the plan to evolve a collaborative security network or agency in the South West.

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“We have been able to come up with a legal framework to back up such establishment of security network in each of the states. So, each of the states will have its own legislation and its own security network corp that will bear the name Amotekun Corps.

“There will be standard operational procedure that will also be in common and there will be an avenue for collaboration between the states, to work together.

“It must be stated that the security network will be working in collaboration and as a complementary network with the police and the security agencies and armed forces.

“We will be depending on our local people because of local intelligence. You can say it is community policing, vigilante but this security system under the name of Amotekun Corps has come to stay.

“The draft bills will proceed to the state houses of assembly of each of the states and will be signed into law by the governors of each state. That is where we are now.

“Today is Friday, by next week it will go to the state houses of assembly after it has passed through the excos of each of the states.

“This is just part of the ways to impact the security architecture in Nigeria, to protect lives and property. We have been emphasising Section 14 of the Constitution, which imposes a duty, a primary duty, on the federal, state and local governments to secure lives and property and that is exactly what the states here present are doing.

“Carrying of arms is regulated by law and the Amotekun outfit will comply with all the laws of the land. The operation manual will accompany the bills to each of the state Houses of Assembly.

“I don’t know about Operation Amotekun, what I know is Amotekun Corps. As I have stated and reiterate, the law is to establish a security network with Amotekun Corps and that is what will be presented to the state houses of assembly and that will probably be passed into law,” Oyelowo said.