An anti-Amotekun protest on Tuesday rocked Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, as some youths from the six Southwest states opposed the Western Nigerian Security Network initiative.
The group, under the aegis of ‘Yoruba Appraisal Forum’, warned that the outfit should be discontinued in Ekiti, Oyo, Osun, Lagos, Ondo and Ogun States to avoid its hijack by unscrupulous elements.
Alleging that it uncovered plot to use the initiative for undue advantages and create instability in the Southwest in 2023, the group displayed placards with inscriptions, such as ‘Amotekun Will Turn Our Youths to Militia Group’, ‘Amotekun Motive, Shine Your Eyes’, ‘Amotekun Can Bring Proliferation of Arms’, among others.
Speaking to journalists during the protest, the group’s coordinator, Mr. Adeshina Animashaun, said the idea of Amotekun was praiseworthy, but hijackers would eventually wreak havoc with the outfit.
Animashaun insisted that Yoruba states’ governors conducted the public hearings too speedily as it should have been done senatorially rather than bringing few people to the state capitals for 30-minute discussions.
According to him, “The southwest 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 the police, National Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Agency and 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.”
The coordinator further said the warnings issued by Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, former Kaduna State Government, Balarabe Musa, Miyetti Allah’s Kautal Hore and others on the hazards of Amotekun should not be discarded.
Animasaun, who appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to improve on the status of Nigeria’s security architecture in order to prevent the resurgence of ‘militia groups’, said the president should also prevail on governors not to sign the Amotekun bills into laws yet until proper security checks are conducted.