The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) has kicked against the declaration of Operation Amotekun as an illegal security outfit by the federal government, noting that it further gives air to the injustice in the polity fuelled by state-backed actors.
The Forum said the Tuesday’s declaration by the federal government was an attempt to suppress the rights of the states to protect themselves against external aggression.
In a statement late Tuesday, SMBLF said: “We consider his (Attorney-General Abubakar Malami) action as an abuse of office to suppress the rights of federating units to secure themselves and in furtherance of the widely-held suspicion that sections of the country are deliberately being rendered vulnerable for herdsmen and other criminals by the Federal Government.
“We ask the governors of the southwest to ignore Malami and allow him to go to court to challenge their decision as he cannot constitute himself as a court over elected governors. We are not under a military rule. We insist that what the governors have done is what individuals and neighborhoods can legally do to secure their life and property.
“We ask Malami to tell us what makes Amotekun illegal and Hisbah legal. He should further explain to us what makes Civilian JTF legal in the northeast where there is war and in Zamfara and Katina and Kano where there is no war, while Amotekun is his only illegal take. This is a defining moment to decide if we are under segregation and different laws in the country.”
Earlier, SMBLF had issued a communiqué following its one-day meeting in Abuja on Monday, where it commended southwest governors for exercising the right to provide security for their people.
It noted that the case of individuals or states protecting themselves is not an issue on the exclusive list. “What is currently on the exclusive list is policing, which is wrong under federalism, as federating units in this country once had native authority police as is usual of multi-level policing under a federal structure.
“While we encourage our states to make do with Amotekun as a temporary measure, the demand for state police must be intensified within the overall restructuring of Nigeria,” SMBLF said in a communiqué.
The meeting was presided over by Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) leader, Chief Edwin Clark, and supported by Chief Ayo Adebanjo (leader of Afenifere), Chief John Nnia Nwodo (president general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo), and Dr Pogu Bitrus (president of Middle Belt Forum).
Also in attendance were prominent leaders from across the south and Middle Belt.
The meeting “reviewed the subtle threats” that followed the introduction of Amotekun “with a conclusion that there is an obvious agenda to make non-Fulani groups in Nigeria defenseless and vulnerable to herdsmen and kidnappers, so that the presidency would not have to tutor them on how to live peacefully with their killer-neighbours the way it had to tell Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue in January, 2018.”
It “observed with sadness that Nigeria today is under a worse irresponsibility of power than it was in 1967 when the first civil war occurred with unbridled nepotism, sectionalism and undisguised marginalisation of major sections of the country in pursuit of a Fulanisation agenda; as we have seen an ethnic group dominating the heads of the three arms of government, the leadership of all security agencies, finance sector and communications in a manner suggestive of a rehash of the planning stage of the genocide against the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda when all sectors relevant to a war economy were taken over for the purpose.”
On Tuesday, a statement by Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations, Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice had stated the federal government position on ‘Operation Amotekun.’
“The setting up of the paramilitary organisation called ‘Amotekun’ is illegal and runs contrary to the provisions of the Nigerian law. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) has established the Army, Navy and Air Force, including the Police and other numerous paramilitary organisations for the purpose of the defence of Nigeria,” the statement read in parts.
