A pressure group, Yoruba Appraisal Forum, has urged relevant security agencies to unveil the profile of people behind the new security outfits in the South-West code named ‘Operation Amotekun’.
The body, in a protest held in Ado-Ekiti on Tuesday, warned of the dire consequences of allowing the politicians to run the outfits without checks.
The group’s coordinator, Mr. Adeshina Animasaun, said in an interview with The NEXT EDITION during the protest that the Amotekun project was a laudable, but insisted that it had been hijacked by those nursing ambitions in 2023.
Animasaun appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to rejig the country’s security architecture to prevent resurgence of militia groups with tendencies to pose dangers to people’s lives.
“We call on President Buhari to use his good offices to call the South-West governors to order by prevailing on them not to sign the Amotekun bills into laws yet, until proper checks about such security are done,” he said.
He faulted the hurried manner at which the governors conducted the public hearings leading to formation of Amotekun, saying, “It ought to have been done senatorially, rather than bringing a few people to the state capitals to contribute in a programme that lasted for 30 minutes.”
The group, he said, had uncovered alleged plot to use Amotekun to destabilise the South-West and ultimately the entire country, in 2023.
READ ALSO: ‘Amotekun’ Will Boost Investment, Improve Nigeria’s Economy – Gani Adams
He stressed that the entire Yoruba race could be endangered in 2023 with the existence of Amotekun, predicting that the network would be hijacked by politicians for insidious mission in the coming elections.
Some of the placards they carried read, “Amotekun will turn our youths to militia group,” “Amotekun Motive, Shine Your Eyes,” among others.
He added: “The South-West governors should be dissuaded from innocently equipping and funding a security outfit that some unscrupulous and wicked individuals have planned to use against the same people the governors have sworn to protect.
“The governors should be made to realise that they should not allow themselves to be railroaded into taking an action they will regret later.
“The nation’s security agencies like police National Intelligence Agency , Defence Intelligence Agency , Department of State Services (DSS) need to profile the current promoters of Amotekun security outfit with a view to ascertaining its real membership and their original intention,” he said.
He urged the handlers to take note of the warnings issued by Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, former Kaduna State Government, Balarabe Musa and the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore and others about the hazards inherent in Amotekun.
