YORUBA COUNCIL OF ELDERS ACCUSE TINUBU OF LATE RESPONSE TO AMOTEKUN ISSUE
Segun Showunmi in Ibadan
The Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) has frowned at the National leader of All Progressive Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu over his late comments on “Operation Amotekun”, a joint security outfit recently launched by the g=Governors of the South West States.
Penpushing reports that the Secretary General of the Council, Dr. Kunle Olajide while speaking to journalists on Thursday in Ibadan, during a press briefing In Ibadan,noted that the statements from Tinubu came a little bit late ‘because Asiwaju is part of the council, and the council expected him to also shared the pains of the Yorubas and sympathized with them whenever there is a problem.
The Scribe maintained that Yoruba nation has been offended grievously and assaulted in the last three years, adding that Tinubu as a foremost leader in Yorubaland must been seen more regional than federal because his political party which he leads nationally controls five States in the Southwest zone.
“We believe he was part of the people that brought the Amotekun to life because majority of the Governors who are the initiators of this project are members of his party, so we are surprised as he said he just initiated discussion with the chairman of the southwest governors forum, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, we are not happy about this because we want him to be more regional than been federal.”
“We want him to be in constant communication with the southwest state governors so that he can know what we are facing, we expect him to be there when Amotekun was to be launched, so for him now to be reacting two to three weeks after the launching is belated and we are not exicted because he did not come out pointedly to blame the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.”
“We urged Asiwaju to be more close to us here by seeing him regularly so that he will not become more federal than regional because any tree that cut off its root shall dies, this is his root, he should come back, he performed effectively as a Governor of Lagos State and we are proud of him when he set his zone against the overbearing Federal Government of that time, why shouldn’t he now be on our own side when Malami was attempting to intimidated and harass our elected governors?
Penpushing further reports that Olajide stressed further that the council believe that Malami was wrong because all Nigerians has the right to protect themselves, saying that what the southwest governors have done was right because it wasn’t against the constitution of Nigeria.
“Only defence is in the exclusive list of the Federal Government, then, the centralized Police system, but that the state governors cannot defend their people and Malami will started insulting them is not acceptable to us.
The Secretary General pointed out that Malami is an appointee of the President, while the Governors were elected officials, adding that section 14(b) of the Nigerian constitution stated that the purpose of the government is the protection of lives of the people and their welfare.
Penpushing also reports that Olajide sited an examples saying that “Chief Olu Falae was kidnapped, the daughter of Chief Fasoranti was murdered, and many Yoruba Professors were also kidnapped, our women and children were raped, and all our farm lands had been destroyed, all these are been done arrogantly and the centralized Police system does not appear to be responding to us because they said they don’t have mandate to go to the bush in order to fish out these perpetrators.”
“Yoruba’s are the most emancipated and liberated in Nigeria, we are exposed and educated, so you don’t expect us to be bundled together like people who are less developed. There is no division in Yorubaland, the priority of any Yoruba group is restructuring irrespective of their political affiliate, and this is not in the interested of Yoruba alone, but the benefit of all regions in Nigeria.”
