A former Governor of Oyo State, Adebayo Alao Akala, has tackled the Federal Government over its declaration that the South-West Security outfit, Operation Amotekun, is illegal.
He told the Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, that his comment to this effect was out of place.
Malami’s comment has sparked outrage, with South-West governors insisting that the outfit has come to stay.
They have repeatedly said it was not an alternative police.
In an interview in ‘The Punch’, Akala said: “My advice is that they should let Amotekun stay. Let me tell you one thing: as a man, you have the power of arrest. You have the power to arrest as a policeman has and then hand the criminal over to the police. After arresting criminals, Amotekun personnel will hand over them to the police. They will continue to give the police information. They will also hand over the cases that they cannot tackle over to the police.
“Amotekun is made of people who understand their terrains very well. Like I said earlier, Amotekun is the larger form of having a maiguard in your house. In this wider case, the governors decided to employ many maiguards to secure their people. It is very simple; it is like the night watchmen that you have in your area. The only difference is that this is a bigger arrangement where the governors would be paying them salaries for providing security services.”
“To say that they are illegal; they are not at all. It is just a way to complement the security outfit of the nation. The JTF in the North are helping the police and army to curb Boko Haram activities in Borno and Yobe states and government is paying them. If you say Operation Amotekun is illegal, it means that many people are doing what is illegal judging by the precedent.”
