Why all Yoruba must rally round Amotekun —Gani Adams 

HOW do you see the launch of the Operation Amotekun?

Operation Amotekun is a welcome development and at the same time it is a belated idea that we have been expecting for a long time. I am one of those that gingered them to hold the South-West Security Summit that led to the establishment of Amotekun.

I can say authoritatively that Yoruba people are very happy with this initiative. Anybody criticising it is either a sadist or that person does not value life. Not only life [such a person does not value] the property someone has acquired with his labour. Amotekun is not the same with state police that we have been demanding before now. I see Amotekun as someone with fever that needs to be given first aid treatment; otherwise if not given, the person may not have the chance to be administered full treatment. Ordinarily, we wanted state police, but in the absence of that something must be done because a state police is a constitutional issue that will require amendment of the constitution. But a security outfit that will be controlled by governors is highly necessary now and not even next month. We know from intelligence report available to us that Yoruba nation has been highly infiltrated. We have been infiltrated all over South- West by criminals both external: from Niger, Chad, Mali and internal, our own people who are criminals.

Some Yoruba people have turned something else. If you are talking of cultism in those days, you hardly heard about secret cults on the streets but only on campuses. This is another serious threat apart from the criminal herdsmen that have infiltrated our ranks.

To even add insult to injury, the president, Muhammadu Buhari, has also approved visa on arrival policy for some of the foreigners at our entry points. This has also created fears for our people. We realised that we are under siege. But Amotekun will solve this issue of insecurity even beyond the menace of Fulani herdsmen.

Let me disclose something to you. Between Shagamu – Ore along Lagos- Ore- Benin Expressway, you will see some beautiful houses built right inside the bush on both sides of the road. Some of them are abodes where ritualists used to attack their victims. From Ogere to Ibadan along Lagos- Ibadan Expressway, the similar thing is that many people have got lost on that axis. Not too long ago, we saw the Soka incident. And people are asking what is Soka›s incident compared to what is happening on those roads. A lot of people are getting lost. Their families would be looking for them and they wouldn›t be found again because they have become victims of ritualists.

Also from Ilesha junction to Akure, something similar is happening there. From Owo to Okene, you will find the same thing happening. Therefore, the security threat in the South- West goes beyond Fulani herdsmen. We also have it on good authority that some Yoruba people are conniving with this criminals, giving them information on who and who they should kidnap to raise money. So as the Aare Onakankanfo I am very interested in Operation Amotekun not because of what I want to get. If people get their salaries, will they come and give me? No, I am not even in government.

We may differ politically, but what our governors are doing right now in respect of Operation Amotekun is in the interest of the entire Yoruba land and we must support them. There is a limit to which we must play politics with our lives. The issue on ground now requires that we Yoruba should allow God to use the present governors to secure our land. The ball is in the court of the governors and also on me as Aare Onakankanfo of Yoruba land. I am not supporting the idea because of personal gain, but what it will bring to Yoruba land. My traditional position requires me to ensure that Yoruba land is secure and save for everyone.

A security outfit like this requires some implementation technicalities. What are the technicalities in guiding the formation of Operation Amotekun?

I may not know much about the technicalities but the DAWN Committee is there to handle that. The committee was set up and controlled by the DAWN Commission  and comprises about 30 people who are meant to work on the technicalities. All the security advisers are there in the committee. There are retired police and SSS officers and even there are strong lecturers in criminology as committee members.

I was granted an interview a few days ago and the interviewer was asking me about fears of stakeholders and that different arms will come together, and I told him that when the Joint Task Force (JTF) started their partnership with the Nigerian Army to subdue Boko Haram in the North- East, the Hausa stakeholders did not express any fear. Why is it that anything that has to do with us, we start to analyse and look for loopholes? Why in South-West should we allow ourselves to be killed like chickens every day? About three or four years ago, South- West was the most peaceful region in Nigeria but it is not so again today. And Hisbah has been in Kano since, implementing Sharia, the penal code in our own constitution for the past 15  years and nobody raised an eyebrow. Even Hisbah psychologically, within Kano State, is more powerful than the Nigeria Police. The same thing in Zamfara.  The governor took the decision about four months ago and set up a security outfit to flush out bandits in Zamfara. Where are the stakeholders, where are the security experts?

The difference between Operation Amotekun and private security outfits is that government controls it, therefore it will be well planned; it will be legitimized. So we have to encourage the governors to start first and I think with time, it will be upgraded. With time, they will be putting their house in order, because by the time they launch this group and within just one month, criminals will move back, they will know that South- West is no longer a safe haven for them.

I can tell you authoritatively that there are some ugly incidents that are happening in the South- West and you media are playing them down because you don’t want to create panic in our region. You deliberately played down these incidents  and I will support you on that. You have some information that if you publish them, within three days, Nigeria will burn. But because you don’t want to run down the government and you don’t want to create panic in the land, you played some of them down. But what of the families of those who are affected by these incidents? Do we know who will be the victim tomorrow? So against all odds, we have to support this Operation Amotekun initiative.

People expected that you would have been invited for the meeting held on Wednesday by the governors and other stakeholders. Why were you not part of it?

I was invited for tomorrow›s [last Thursday] event, which is the day of inauguration of the outfit. Let me tell you something, when they are in government, they prove class and when they are no longer there, the class diminishes. But it is not compulsory I should be in that meeting. Don’t forget that they called it South- West governors’ meeting. Even our most respected obas in Yoruba land cannot be in that meeting because it›s governors› meeting. The only meeting which I can attend is if the technical committee invites me or I liaise with them one on one. But when they are holding their South-West Governors’ meeting, no other personality is allowed to be there unless you are a consultant to them or they invite you privately. So what I am saying is that it is not compulsory to be in that meeting, but we can give them support. Inasmuch as they are still doing what we want, we will support them, but if they do anything against our wish, I will talk. You all know me that I will talk. But now, they are still in order. Even though it is not all the states that have contacted us, we only have three states which have contacted us. But for now, we are waiting for them to inaugurate and see what will happen. Operation Amotekun is not about our own economic interest, it is about the interest of the Yoruba people. It is about the interest of young Yoruba people that they kidnap when they are going to school; it is about the younger ones they are using for rituals. There is no nightlife in Yoruba land again. When we were growing up, you could go out in the middle of the night and buy food. That is not happening again. But because of insecurity, we are lock ourselves inside like prisoners. Every street is now locked by 12 midnight and open by 5 a.m, which was not so in the past when security was effective. The issue of security is very paramount and we should not take it lightly.

In the past, you would enjoy yourself at weekends; you could attend parties. Look at it, in Lagos now, every party ends by 9 pm, because if you fail to end your party by 9 pm, by the time you are moving from the party by 11pm, the ‘Oraisa boys’ would be tearing your shirts and collecting your phones with just locally made pistols! So, definitely, the issue of security is very paramount and that should not be taken lightly.

 You talked about Operation Amotekun being a stop-gap, what do you think is the final solution to problem of insecurity in South-West? Is restructuring the way out? 

Well, Operation Amotekun is just a temporary way of solving the problem. Even having a state police without restructuring is not ideal. State police is a content of true federalism, just a content within true federalism. If we want to solve our problem, we should solve it once and for all.

Let me just explain why I say the state police is just a content of federalism and that restructuring is very key. What we mean by restructuring is allowing the federating units to have their own autonomy. That is all.  During the Constitutional Conference in 1996, The Abacha-led government had structured Nigeria into six zones, South-West, South- East, South-South, North-West, North- Central and North- East and even though we don›t want to waste our time, we don›t even want to waste our money going for another conference, let the component units develop at their pace. Let the federal government remains in Abuja. Abuja should control the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the SSS, federal police, Nigerian security and Civil Defence Corps and other relevant agencies at the federal level.

At the regional level, we are talking about security. They should have their regional, state and local government police. The structure of police in this country should be like four. In Britain, with a population of about just sixty million people, we have seven structures of police. In the United States of America, you can›t count the number of structures the United States Police have and we borrowed this constitution from the United States in 1978.

I read the autobiography of Joseph Wayas. Joseph Wayas said they spent about two months in the US to study their constitution because they wanted to replicate their constitution in Nigeria as a Senate president then in 1979. So why should you replicate a constitution without using it the way you took it from there? You replicate a true federalism in the US and you remove the ones you wanted and threw the main content of the constitution away.

Again, when you are talking of the constitution, if you don›t accept the report of the National Conference in 2014, what of the Republican Constitution of 1963 that our leaders sat together to write by themselves. That is the main people›s constitution. The 1960 Constitution was from the then colonial masters, but the 1963 Constitution was written by our former political leaders. So we have a lot of options for restructuring Nigeria, but the federating units should be given their own autonomy. Assuming a federating unit was given its own autonomy, I don›t think Nigeria would be as worse as this. Nigeria could have been a better country if the federating units were given autonomy to run their units. I can assure you that within seven years, Nigeria would be a country that the entire African countries would be worshipping because ideas would flow, economic competitiveness would be there, development competitiveness would be there and every region would be asking what can I do that I would realise so and so billions? By then a healthy rivalry would be there on the basis of the federating units and all of us would not be running to Abuja and running to Lagos. With that you can see the dream of everybody in their states, and the spirit of let me run to Abuja, let me go to Lagos and make money, would not be there. People would go back to all these rural areas and develop those places.  For instance, when you go to developed countries, the kind of eateries and the shopping centres you have in very urban areas, you will see them in the villages and with the same products like what we have at the secretariat, at Alausa, Ikeja. I mean at Shoprites that you have there. You will see them in the remote villages of developed countries and at the prices they are selling them in the urban areas. With that, you will now see somebody living in Ekiti – that›s what I noticed in Europe, US and UK- when you meet him or her in Ekiti or if you ask why has he or her not come to Lagos, he or she would say what will I go and do in Lagos? Everything I need is here. Is it not everything you see here that you also saw in Lagos? That would be his or her reply.

So what is happening here in Nigeria is that the gap between urban and rural areas is too much and it is giving unnecessary dream to the youth to leave the rural areas to go to urban areas. By the time they get to the urban area, most of them would not be able to fit in. You now see some criminals luring them to criminal activities. So a lot of things have to be corrected and restructuring is the only way that can solve this problem. If we don›t restructure Nigeria, we are wasting our time.

We keep on borrowing everyday. According to Debt Management Office (DMO), the last count of our debt is N25trn, and the government is trying to borrow more now, that›s $30bn and when you convert $30bn to naira, it›s almost N11trn. So if the government borrows another $30bn, our debt will be N35trn and some economic experts say that the money you want to borrow, you will be using half of the money to service it every year. It doesn›t make sense, every year, half of the money!

And when you see the budget that is coming out now, they have already targeted that they would borrow 30 per cent to run it. They would then generate 20 per cent from increment in tax. So anybody that is reasonable, that has a little economic knowledge would know that Nigeria is not moving to anywhere. We are not moving. And we have a lot of things to develop that would give us more money. Our attention lies on oil and our attention is also about making money from tax and we don›t even improve on our electricity supply.

Now we are using generator here at home, you can see, without generator there is no way we can survive in this place. You don›t improve on our electricity supply and you want to make money. When you are moving from Anthony to Apapa, which is an industrial area, the number of industries we have in that area down to Apapa is about 400 to 500. Hardly do we have about 50 that are working now. When you ask the investors what is the reason behind that, they would tell you they are running their factories with generators and most of the modern equipment they wanted to bring into the country, the generators could not work with them.