The Yoruba World Congress (YWC), an umbrella organization for Yoruba nationals at home and abroad on Saturday declared it’s totally opposition to any attempt at putting the regional security outfit, Amotekun, under the control of the Inspector General of Police, saying the body should not be subsumed under the police.
The congress said putting Amotekun under the Nigerian Police hierarchy will completely weaken the outfit and sabotage the strident clamour of the people of the Southwest for peace and security in their homeland.
The organisation in a statement on Saturday by the President General, Prof. Banji Akintoye backed expressed its support for Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, of Ondo State and Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State who had equally opposed the planned move to put the security outfit under the control of the police.
Akintoye described the decision by the governors as a step in the right direction.
“The Yoruba World Congress, an umbrella organization for Yoruba nationals at home and abroad, met and decided as follows: “We support the stand of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State that the Southwest security outfit codenamed Amotekun shall not be subsumed under the control of the Nigeria Police Force.
“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 Southwest 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 Southwest for peace and security in their homeland.
“It must be noted that the entire Southwest 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 of Governors Akeredolu and Makinde on the independence of Amotekun and call on other Southwest 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 Southwest must not be compromised. “We, therefore, call on those trying to toy with Amotekun to desist henceforth.”
“We have the inalienable right to security of life and property “We therefore stand solidly with the Southwest 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. Community security is an idea whose time has come.
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