Amotekun Creation Is a Treasonable Act, Threat to Democracy – says Secretary of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore

Click on “Watch on YouTube” link above to watch this video directly on YouTube

The essence of this video is the discourse about the fear, justified or not, by the National Secretary of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Saleh Alhassan, regarding the creation of the Amotekun by the six governors of the Southwest. The other guest and President of the Center for the Rule of Law, Olasupo Ojo, sees the Amotekun phenomenon to be beyond the scope of security. He posits that the very constitutional architecture of the subsisting 1999 Constitution must be looked into by whoever are interested in having a serious deliberation regarding the Amotekun matter.

He made a particular reference to the 68-item Federal Exclusive List of the 1999 Constitution which concentrates all security-related matters, including policing, in the hands of the government at the center. The gross failure of the present setup to protect the lives and properties of innocent law-abiding citizens makes it imperative that the state governors should step up and do the job as the chief security officers of their respective jurisdictions.

The Miyetti Allah scribe emphasizes the illegality of the Amotekun since there are to preceding laws made by the Southwest states’ legislature to empower its creation. He calls the Amotekun as “an ethnic militia” whose modus operand is to accomplish the single goal of chasing Fulani pastoralists out of the Southwest. He alleges that the new security force is only a new face of the Odu’ua Peoples Congress (OPC) whose militancy and brutality against the Fulani in the area are well-known. The Miyetti Allah leader attempted to defend the creation of paramilitary police, the Hisbah, in Kano state by claiming that there is a legislative act backing up the said security outfit. He could not, however, prove that the Hisbah was not already in business in the city of Kano and elsewhere in the Islamic North long before any laws were made to regulate it.

Mr. Ojo put up a passionate defense for Amotekun’s creation before the making of the legislative instruments to define it. In a democracy, many impactful laws are made in response to citizens’ inclinations, priorities and choices. He argues that laws are made for the people and not the other way around. To label the creation of a much-needed security outfit for protecting the people as treasonable, when it is evident that the Nigeria Police has woefully failed in its duty, cannot be justified in law or ordinary commonsense.

Fulani herdsmen terrorist militia is well-equipped with AK47 rifles and other military-grade weapons. The paramilitary outfit is being sponsored by Myetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) to procure and secure fresh grazing pastures and cattle routes that link them in Middle Belt & Southern Nigeria.

Malam Alhassan cannot explain the basis for his group’s fear of the Amotekun. The Amotekun was explicitly created to fight “Bandits and Criminals”, irrespective of the ethnic background, residence or occupation. Malam Alhasan repeatedly endeavored to get across his viewpoint that the Amotekun’s raison d’etre is to flush the Fulani herdsmen, who he prefers to call “pastoralists”, out of the Yorubaland. He, however, refused to state whether the activities of the said Fulani herdsmen in the Southwest would fit those ascribed to “bandits and criminals”.

Mr. Ojo was impactful by arguing the nonequivalence of the security of the lives of citizens and safeguarding the economic interests of an association behind a business concern owned and operated by the Fulani. If the debate breaks down into the protection of the lives of inhabitants of Yorubaland versus the smooth operation and buoyancy of the Fulani beef cattle industry, the contest’s outcome shall not be close at all. The Kautal Hore scribe tried to use irritating and abusive words during the exchanges, but the interviewer moderator effectively checkmated him.

Conclusion

The Amotekun phenomenon is not just about security per se because there are constitutional stipulations that facilitate the sort of killings and acts of impunity which the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) was created to fight. If there are no bandits and criminals running haywire in the Southwest, at least from the governor’s perspective, Amotekun would not have been necessary. It is easy to project that this video is one in a long line of others that shall be devoted to unraveling the Amotekun phenomenon and why it might constitute a watershed in demand for change from a Unitary Nigeria to regional federalism that is predicated on the self-determination of all the indigenous ethnic nationalities inhabiting the country’s geopolitical space.