The Miyetti Allah Kaute Hore has asked south-west governors to give up “Amotekun”, a regional security outfit.
Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, had declared the security outfit as “illegal” but Rotimi Akeredolu, governor of Ondo state, insisted that the region would go ahead with the initiative.
In an interview with The PUNCH, Alhassan Saleh, national secretary of the group, described the security outfit as political.
He advised the south-west to give up the idea of running the security outfit as it could affect the region’s chances of producing the next president.
“This Amotekun scheme is political and is not the solution to the problem of insecurity, ” he said.
“What the south-west governors should have done is to continue to push for state police. Where did they expect to get the funding from at a time some of them are struggling to pay salaries?
“It is best they give up on this idea because it may affect the chances of the south-west to produce the president in 2023.
“The thinking is that if the south-west, a major stakeholder in this government, can be toying with this idea now, they may do worse when they get to power.”
Saleh said his group agreed with the AGF that the outfit is illegal. He said he was unhappy that the AGF waited for the planning to reach an advanced stage before speaking out against it.
“We are in agreement with the AGF that Amotekun is illegal. In fact, we are unhappy that it took the AGF this long to react,” he said.
Governors of the region said they floated the security outfit to tackle rising criminality in the south-west.
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