Operation Amotekun: A Vote Of Confidence By Ayodele Akinkuotu

NEVER in recent times has breaking news been more confusing. That was what happened in the evening of Thursday, January 23. As the six Southwest governors rose from their meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, announcing that the discord on Operation Amotekun had been resolved, a statement from the office of Abubakar Malami, Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, reiterated his earlier position that the outfit remains illegal and unconstitutional.


For a nation perpetually on edge on matters of insecurity in the last several years, it is curious that an attempt by governors of Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Ekiti states to put an end to rampant kidnappings and banditry in the region can be declared as illegal and unconstitutional by the Federal Government. 

That declaration on Operation Amotekun by Malami clearly makes President Muhammadu Buhari’s security agenda for the nation suspect. Is it that the only briefing the President routinely gets from his top security aides is on the insurgency in the Northeast, where Boko Haram remains a perpetual pain in the neck? Something tells me though that Buhari gets a fuller brief than that. As Commander-in-Chief, he is the one who surely gives the nod for the numerous nationwide periodic sweeps of criminals out of their dens by the Army and allied security agencies. Some of those nine operations, Mesa, Python Dance, Crocodile Tears had been conducted in the South.

Only the army and allied security agencies would know to what extent they had ridden the nation of criminals through these exercises. Surely, the Southwest must have gained some benefits.

For a nation that is not officially at war, perhaps President Buhari needs to secretly send an undercover emissary to travel to the South to get a real taste of the palpable fear that reigns supreme not only on Nigerian roads, but the entire landscape. His emissary should for a sampler travel the Shagamu to Benin Expressway.