The establishment of Operation Amotekun on Thursday, February 13, received a boost as the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, and the six southwest governors have finally agreed on the security outfit.
This was the outcome of the stakeholders’ summit on community policing involving the IG, the governors, commissioners of police as well as commissioner for justice from the six states in the region, other security agencies in the state, royal fathers, community development committees and other stakeholders at the Lagos House, Alausa, Ikeja.
The chairman of the southwest governors’ forum, Rotimi Akeredolu, and Adamu, who addressed reporters at the end of the closed-door deliberations, identified Amotekun as a community policing strategy to tackle crime in the region.
Akeredolu said: “It is clear that community policing which the Nigeria police is anchoring is one that will benefit all of us from the ward up to the state level.
“Amotekun is state-based because we don’t have regions in the country anyway. We only have states and all of us have agreed that when you have laws in your respective states backing Amotekun or any security outfit, then you can go ahead for as long as it is within the legal bound.
Adamu corroborated every state right has one form of security outfit or the other working with security agencies to fight crime, adding community policing is infused into all the existing states’ security structures.
The IGP said: “Amotekun is not a regional security outfit, as it is existing now every state has one form of the outfit, whether it is vigilante or neighbourhood watch, that are working with security agencies of the state to fight crimes.
“This area must be clarified. It is not a regional structure, it is a state structure and it must be backed by law for it to be effective so we are saying the same thing, the structure must be in tandem with community policing.”
He explained that whatever structure is in place must be in partnership with the police to deal with problems that are associated with crimes and criminality.