Amotekun: Section 19 Of The Law Provides For Limit — Ekiti Speaker

Honourable Funminiyi Afuye, Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly has said that the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) popularly called Amotekun will not pose a problem or work outside the ambit of the law be­cause section 19 of the law setting it up has provided limits under which it would operate.

Afuye had in a local me­dia on Friday maintained that the law setting up the organisation would be do­mesticated by each State, stressing that Amotekun would not operate outside the constitution.

Answering questions on the possibility of conflict with the police, Afuye said, “The essence of the state is to protect lives and prop­erty. Provision of the law takes care of the limit of Amotekun. There will be no conflict with the police; there will be no conflict among states, just like the Joint Task Force (JTF) in the North is supporting the Army.”

He said that the imple­mentation would start once signed into law, stressing that recruitment of mem­bers of the regional securi­ty outfit would be devoid of political colouration.

The lawmaker said that security was local, maintain­ing that WNSN would recruit people with knowledge and history of the environment, pointing out that it was for that reason that Amotekun would be preferred to the po­lice who most times have no knowledge of the nooks and crannies of the forest where criminals who terrorised the region operated from.

Speaking on the possibili­ty of collaboration with oth­er regional outfits, he said, “Security has no space. It is everywhere. A situation where people could not travel freely within the region was a huge problem. We would be ready to work with any other regional security outfit with the same objective.

“Development, Gen­der, for Western Nigeria, brought all the South West States together and the aim was for development. The group knew that without se­curity, development would not thrive, which is why it looked into the issue of secu­rity, and the state governors keyed into it.”