Operation Amotekun: South West targets legal action against FG's pronouncement over security outfit

The Federal Government has declared the South-West security outfit, Operation Amotekun, illegal.

The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), made the government’s position known in a statement on Tuesday by his spokesman, Dr Umar Gwandu.

But The PUNCH  gathered that the South-West governors would in the next few days meet and might resort to legal action against the AGF’s pronouncement.

Following serial killings and kidnapping allegedly by the Fulani herdsmen last year, the South-West governors, at a summit convened by the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria in June agreed to set up Operation Amotekun.

On Thursday, the governors inaugurated the security outfit, which would comprise the Oodua Peoples Congress, the vigilante groups and local hunters.

The Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, and groups, including the Ohanaeze Ndigbo;  the  Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere,  and Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, lauded the governors for setting up the security outfit.

The PUNCH had earlier reported that intrigues among the governors and interference by the Federal Government were threatening the operation of the security outfit.

According to the report, some elements within the Presidency and the police high command are not favourably disposed to the regional outfit because they consider it as part of restructuring agenda which the South-West has been clamouring for.

On Tuesday, the Federal Government finally came out with its verdict on the outfit about one week after its inauguration.  It said it was not carried along while the outfit was being put in place.

The statement read, “The setting up of the paramilitary organisation called Amotekun is illegal and runs contrary to the provisions of the Nigerian law.