Umbrella body for hersmen in Nigeria, Miyetti Allah has sparked a dramatic respone from Nigerians after it announced it would send representaives to public hearings on yoruba security outfit, Amotekun.
On Monday, February 24, 2019, the first public hearing on Amotekun will be holding in all the six southwestern states.
Miyetti Allah said they will send delegates to Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Lagos and Ekiti venues. Part of their request is for some of their members to be included among the Amotekun Generals
They said it would be an avenue to make their positions known on the issue.
The association had expressed its reservations over the setting up of the Western Nigeria Security Network, codenamed Operation Amotekun, claiming that the initiative was aimed at flushing out the Fulani tribe from the South-West. But the South-West Governors’ Forum had in its reaction dismissed the claim as misplaced and unnecessary.
In the South-West and some other regions, there had been clashes between herders and farmers, while some herders had also been accused of killing and kidnapping innocent villagers. In their response to the rising killings and kidnappings by criminals and some persons alleged to be herders, the governors of the six states in the region had launched Operation Amotekun on January 9, 2020, to provide security for the people in the region.
The Attorneys-General of the six states in the South-West had approved a draft bill for the establishment of Amotekun, noting that each state would enact its own law and establish its own operatives to be known as Amotekun Corps.
The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, had also said at the South-West security meeting on community policing, convened at his instance about a week ago that Amotekun would no longer be a regional operation but state-based.
After passing first and second readings in most of the states’ Houses of Assembly, the public hearing is scheduled to hold on Monday.