Gov Akeredolu ’emboldening Amotekun’ to harass, intimidate Northerners in Ondo State – Arewa Youth
*Enough of it, we have had enough, Group warns, asks “what if other way?”
By OUR REPORTER
The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), on Friday, rose to the challenge of what it called incessant harassment and intimidation of Northerners doing business in Ondo State by Amotekun, a security network it described as of “armed gangs masquerading as security agents in a nation where the police, the DSS, NSCDC and others are the only recognised enforcers of law and order”.
Doing this, the AYCF cautioned the Ondo State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), to tread cautiously in “condoning the latest round of harassment of northerners in the state”.
This warning was issued in a statement signed by that group’s National President, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, who took a swipe at the Ondo State government, accusing it of “looking the other way while northerners get purportedly arrested by armed militia disguised as Amotekun, on trumped up charges”.
It condemned, in strong terms, the activities of the local security outfit it put off as rather irrelevant in the place of Police, DSS and NSCDC, which are not only recognised by the law of the nation to carry out security and intelligence duties bit also well trained to do.
The group then said: “We wish to sound a strong note warning, that the Ondo State Government should stop turning a blind eye to the attack on innocent Nigerians from the North who are doing legitimate business in the state.
“If the people of northern Nigeria had taken the same path of extra judicial harassment, by now no indigene of Ondo State would have been living and doing business in the region”.
The AYCF then declared: “We have had enough of this unbridled harassment and intimidation of northerners in Ondo State and we are beginning to see that the disposition of the state governor is what has emboldened extra-judicial militia outfits to make innocent northerners in Ondo the butt of shameful intimidation”.
