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By Samuel Adegoke and Faith Ijeh
The Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yoruba, Iba Gani Adams, has revealed that a helicopter drops food and weapons for illegal miners in a community very close to Owo, Ondo State, which is aggravating insecurity in the area.
Adam made the revelation in an interview on a TVC programme, Your View, on Monday.
Speaking broadly on why Amotekun has not been fully successful, Adam said some powers that be are technically supporting criminals, a development that emboldens them to carry out nefarious activities thereby throwing communities and Nigeria at large into chaos.
His words: “Well, Amotekun is not even a state police because the Federal Goveenment did not announce state police yet. Amotekun is just like someone who has typhoid and you are using paracetamol because Amotekun is just an outfit and the South West governors requested from the security adviser. No Amotekun personnel can carry a true pump action guns, not even AK47; the Federal Government refused to allow them to carry pump action for security purpose. How can you have a security outfit that is armless to face all these dangerous criminals in our country? In Uwe village, Owo, there are bandits residing in the forest, mining our gold. The information we got on our desk is that a helicopter will come and drop food and arms to them to protect them, so the community doesn’t chase them away. And in Ilesa, a similar thing is happening but we don’t have the information that an helicopter is dropping food and arms for them in Ilesa and Ile-Ife.But most of our communities that have solid minerals, illegal things are happening in those areas.
“Don’t forget the genesis of the security threat that happened in one of the most peaceful zones before which is the North West was a result of mining gold in Zamfara. The miner empowered themselves with illegal arms and at the end of the day they constituted nuisance, from mining they upgraded to kidnapping and from there they called them bandits.”
He continued: “I have written a lot of letters to the security agencies and one of the information given to them is that of the kidnappers, criminals in our communities; that was what led to the arrest of the suspect who killed the daughter of Chief Fasoranti. I have issued a lot of statements on the destination of criminals in this country and when you go there, you will meet them there because I won’t tell lies to our people and I wont tell lies to Nigeria. I was not brought up to be a liar, I was not brought up to purge out fallacy to the people. Even two weeks ago, I wrote a letter to all the South West governors that I require an audience so I can give them more information of what I heard as the Aare Ona Kakanfo. Although Aare Ona Kakanfo is constitutionally not a security chieftaincy title but, in our history, he is the Defence Minister of the entire Yoruba race. So, definitely, I have a role to play to support the role of the government agencies and the governor. I have written a letter to them and so far only one has granted the request.
“That will show you the non-chalant attitude of the people in authority because when you have someone who said they want to talk to you about security, whether you like the face of that person or not, you have to give him an audience and listen. So I have been trying my best, I don’t keep quiet about the issue of security and I was not paid for it, I was not even expecting salary, I was not given a contract but what I believe is that service to the people is one of the things that God loves.”