Ondo State’s Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu who is also the Chairman of the South-West Governors’ Forum has said the region’s security outfit, Operation Amotekun, will kick off any moment from now.
The Ondo State Governor, who spoke through his Special Adviser on Security Matters, Alhaji Jimoh Dojumo, said this after the meeting between South-West governors and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo in Abuja on Thursday.
He said, “As it is now, we are good to go; any moment from now the operation will kick off. We are commencing our recruitment any moment from now in line with government position.
He also said they would send a bill to the House of Assembly to begin legislative work on the outfit.
Akeredolu said, “We have involved the House of Assembly and the Attorney General is also involved. We will send the bill very soon. That is what we discussed in our meeting in Ibadan and we have concluded that everything will be in line with the community policing arrangement.”
We must restructure, present system isn’t working – Akerodolu
Akerodolu had earlier said Nigeria must be restructured to secure its borders and attain its full potential.
He said the issue was beyond Ametokun.
Akerodolu said this in an interview with reporters in Abuja on Friday.
The Ondo State Governor restated the forum and the All Progressives Congress’ commitment to restructuring.
He said, “We are committed to restructuring this country, we are not saying it because of Ametokun. This country must be restructured and we have said it openly. The APC has it in its constitution and part of our manifesto. Restructuring was stated clearly, that we will do it, why we have not done it, nobody knows but we have to.
“There have been some efforts to restructure (the country) and we can give credit to those who have been making some efforts at restructuring in one way or another. For us, restructuring is not something we can compromise because that is the only way for this country; we must restructure, we cannot continue this way.
“Everybody must have a sense of belonging and the only way is for us to carry out this restructuring.”
Akerodolu said it was not true that the region was planning to secede, hence Amotekun.
He said the regional outfit was designed to assist states share cost as well as information to secure the life and property.
Akeredolu confirmed that the Attorneys General of all the six states in the Amotekun project were meeting to fashion out the legal framework to support its operations after which each state is expected to domesticate it.
He said, “It is not a single command structure, each state will have its own and we can now reach each other and we share cost of very expensive equipment.
“We are talking about trackers that go for about N400m to N500m and I said, why don’t I put N250m and Ekiti put N250m and we use one. Oyo and Osun can share, Lagos is big they can buy their own, those of us who don’t have much can share.”
He added, “When people say we don’t like state police, I laugh. Why won’t we have state police? We cannot have the command in Abuja to cover the whole country, the current system is not working, some of us have said we have to devolve to the states.”
On training, Akerodolu said, “…luckily, most of these men will be trained by the police.”
Credit: punchng.com
