Northern Youth Council of Nigeria says Amotekun like Ipob and Boko Haram is a terrorist body

MEMBERS of the Northern Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) have condemned the recent creation of the security arrangement in the southwest known as Operation Amotekun describing it as a threat to national security.

Launched today, Operation Amotekun was put together by the governors of Nigeria's six southwest states to provide regional security. It will involve the training of vigilantes, hunters and members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) to provide security intelligence to the police and armed forces.

Although members of the Yoruba groups, including the OPC, hunters and vigilantes,  would not join the patrols by security agencies, they will be involved in intelligence gathering, which will be made available to the police and military. However, the NYCN has described Operation Amotekun as a threat to national security, pointing out that it is an offshoot of the OPC.

Isa Abubakar, the NYCN president, said: "Amotekun in the southwest is the OPC's military wing in disguise in much the same league with the proscribed Ipob terrorist organisation. The southwest governors must desist from backing nefarious groups such as this one.

"Amotekun is a threat to peace and national security and an attempt to jeopardise Nigeria’s sovereignty. The Amoye4kun Group is not different from Boko Haram and the Ipob movements."

He called on the Nigeria Police, Department of State Security and the military not to take this lightly with the governors of southwest. According to Mr Abubakar, the national security adviser should promptly take steps that will avert the looming threat to Nigeria's national security that is about to be created by governors of southwest, the OPC, and others.

Over recent years, heavily-armed herdsmen have been running riot across southwestern Nigeria, engaging in kidnapping, armed robbery and banditry. To address the problem, the governors of southwest Nigeria decided to launch a regional security outfit named Amotekun, which means leopard in the local Yoruba language and over the last week have supplied it with vehicles and equipment.