Ondo State Inaugurates Amotekun Corps

Posted by African Examiner African News, Featured, Latest Headlines, News, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Tuesday, August 11th, 2020

By Niyi Adeyi, Akure

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – The Ondo State Government has inaugurated 192 pioneer corps members of the South West Security Network Agency – Operation Amotekun.

Speaking at the inauguration which held Tuesday at the Gani Fawehimi Arcade in Akure the state capital, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu expressed hope that no criminal element would trouble the relative peace enjoyed in the South west state as the agency had resumed full operations.

“It was so horrible that marauders laid siege to the highways as well as in the farmlands waiting to kidnap or devour anyone in sight. With the launch of the Amotekun, we resolved that it shall be no retreat, no surrender. We are not going to be intimidated or blackmailed.

”It is incontrovertible that the existing security framework is being overstretched and we had to devise a means of confronting the challenge of insecurity head-on. That was when the concept of Amotekun came up. As Yorubas, we are not known to surrender to our adversaries and if our forebears did not, we should not.

“On 4th March, this year, just two months after the launch of Amotekun in Ibadan, the bill setting up the Corps was signed into law, after diligent and thorough work by the State House of Assembly. The import of this is that Amotekun Corps is now a legal entity not just the idea of an individual’’ Akeredolu asserted

The Governor who recently won the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) re-election ticket noted that Operation Amotekun was not inaugurated to pursue his second-term agenda.

“I am saying it again, that my ambition is not worth the insecurities that our people are confronted with, where at some point, people were afraid of travelling out of the state’’ Akeredolu restated.

The Commander security agency, Mr. Adetunji Adeleye, disclosed that Amotekun Operation personnel were trained in collaboration with experienced hands drawn from the various security agencies in the state.

He declared that the corps resolve on zero-tolerance to crime will be evident through robust intelligence sharing with security agencies to reduce the spate of criminality in the state.