INSECURITY: Allow Amotekun, state vigilantes carry AK-47 – Ex-Minister Akinyemi

BY KAZIE UKO

A former minister of Foreign Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to allow the state government-owned security outfits and vigilantes to carry the AK-47 riffles in the task of securing their states.

Prof Akinyemi, who served under Nigeria’s former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd), said such security agencies as Amotekun, Civilian JTF and the Benue Vigilante Services created by the states should be allowed to carry proper arms.

Speaking at a live television interview programme, monitored by RELIABLESOURCENG.COM, in Lagos, Akinyemi, 80, said it is a wrong decision by the Federal Government to refuse to arm the state vigilantes and security outfits.

“It’s a wrong decision driven by this power struggle over who rules Nigeria, to refuse to arm the JTF (Civilian JTF), refuse to arm state security forces, refuse to arm Amotekun, and kept saying, no, AK-47 is just for the police.

“Even the Nigeria Police don’t have enough AK-47. At times, when you read what happens in the South East and the DPO says, when these people came, I had only 10 guns and the people who attacked us had more than 10 guns, excuse me!

“Then what do you say, that the police is well-armed, not to now talk about allowing the state governors who are prepared to pay for the importation of arms for Amotekun, for state police? Those are the things we need to do,” Akinyemi counselled.

READ: It’s injustice clamping down on IPOB and leaving AK-47 carrying Fulanis – Ortom

In addition to equipping the state security outfits, the professor of political science also advised the Federal Government to embark on a massive recruitment of police personnel to help combat the spate of insecurity in the country.

Likening the country’s present state to war, Akinyemi said when Nigeria was going into the civil war against the Biafra insurgents in 1967, there was massive recruitment into the armed forces and such should be replicated now.

He said: “I have not seen any sense of urgency in the recruitment into the Nigeria Police. I don’t see any massive recruitment. I’m not talking about token recruitment. I will like to see massive recruitment into the Nigerian Police.”

On the security alert issued by the United States of a possible terrorist attack on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, Akinyemi, who was also a former Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), said he would rather believe the intelligence from the Americans than discountenance it the way the minister of information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed had done.

He gave his reasons: “Americans have information from all over the world and those who follow this system know that at times information about what is going to happen in Nigeria could have been picked up in Afghanistan, could have been picked up in Syria, could have been picked up anywhere in the world, not necessarily in Nigeria.

“I will believe the Americans and I will believe the Nigerian Police, they are the experts, who also know how to do assessment of reactions to intelligence cover and that’s also why I said I will like to see helicopter movement all over to show the terrorist cells that they’re being monitored and to assure Nigerians that they’re up to the task.”