Gani Adams, a prominent Nigerian activist who holds the title of the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland says the region has been severely infiltrated, with some southwesterners contributing 25 to 30 per cent of the security threats being witnessed in the region.
Adams stated this when he featured on an ARISE News program, The Morning Show. He said some citizens of Yoruba speaking states in the country have assisted some of the Fulani herdsmen involved in kidnapping and other criminal activities by providing them with food and information about their targets.
“By the time we released a statement, we realised that we have been seriously infiltrated. Even the security threats we are having in the southwest now, we realise that our people constituted nothing less than 25 to 30 per cent of the security threat,” the Yoruba generalissimo told ARISE News.
“Unlike some Fulani herdsmen that were arrested in Ilesa (and) in Akure, when the OPC vigilante and the Amotekun arrested them last week, we realised that the person who prepared food for them in that forest was a Yoruba person in Ilesa and we realised that the person that gave them information about the people they will kidnap is a Yoruba person.
“So we had to sit back and apply strategy to this issue, where is our problem coming from? who are the evil people among us that need money at any time to flash as big men in the society?”
Mr Adams, who by the virtue of his title is expected to be at the vanguard of the advocacy of Yoruba interests within the larger Nigerian framework said strengthening the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) codenamed Operation Amotekun, is the only way the region can effectively tackle insecurity.
“If you want to fight insecurity conventionally and we still respect the fact that we have six southwest governors in Yoruba land. The only way out is to support Amotekun to do their job and not by frustrating Amotekun.
“When we crucify them at the end and we destroy them, it will affect Yoruba land, because the governor is not ready to give security to someone they don’t have control on and the government is not ready to give security to any group that is to gazetted by the government and we are so lucky that Amotekun has been gazetted in law and the States Houses of Assembly have already put it into law and the six southwest governors have signed it and we appeal to the Yoruba people to allow the system to work.”
By Abel Ejikeme