Akeredolu accuses FG of bias for not allowing Amotekun to bear arms

Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu on Thursday declared that Nigeria cannot be one country but operates two systems.

The Governor, who accused the Federal Government of bias in refusing to allow the Western Nigeria Security Network Agency, also known as Amotekun Corps, to carry sophisticated firearms, was reacting to the approval granted the Katsina State Security Outfit, which is equivalent to Amotekun Corps, to carry sophisticated firearms.

Akeredolu, who said in a statement on Thursday through his Chief Press Secretary, Richard Olatunde, declared: “We believe in one Nigeria, but we cannot have one country, two systems.”

According to him, denying Amotekun the right to bear arms, would expose the South-West to life-threatening marauders and organised crime.

The statement read in part: “The video making the rounds showing the equivalent of the Western Nigeria Security Network (Amotekun Corps) in Katsina obtaining Federal Government approval to bear arms is fraught with great dangers.

“Denying Amotekun the urgently needed rights to legitimately bear arms is a repudiation of the basis of true federalism, which we have been clamouring for. That Katsina was able to arm its state security force with the display of an AK-47 means we are pursuing a one-country, two-system solution to the national question.

“If the Katsina situation confers advantages on some in the face of commonly faced existential threats, it means that our unitary policing system, which has failed, is a deliberate method of subjugation which must be challenged.

“The Independence Agreement was based on a democratic arrangement to have a federal state and devolve internal security mechanics. We must go back to that agreement. Denying Amotekun the right to bear arms exposes the South-West to life-threatening marauders and organised crime. It is also the deliberate destruction of our agricultural sector.”