Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has told the Federal government to refrain from its plan to proscribe “Amotekun”, the regional security outfit in the south-west.
Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, had described the outfit as illegal, saying security remains the exclusive preserve of the federal government.
But at a press conference in Lagos on Wednesday, Soyinka expressed shock that the federal government could take such a position.
Soyinka said instead of tagging Amotekun initiative, a brainchild of the South-West governors to tackle insecurity in the region illegal, he implored those he said were indifferent to the anguish and plight of Nigerians when they were being killed to return to sleep.
“Our responsibility as a citizen is to take actions against events, phenomenon which militate against our existence, security, productivity and dignity as human beings,” he said.
“This has been a result of collective consciousness by people of this region. These governors met and they came up with this solution, Amotekun. Now, some people who have been sleeping all this time, taking belated actions in many directions, who watched the citizens of this nation decimated, villages wiped out, farmers chased off their land. They are now coming out to tell us that this initiative is illegal, unconstitutional. I think they should go back to sleep.
“I prefer to believe that the government itself has not spoken. I refuse to believe that any serious government will raise any objection to this kind of initiative. Amotekun has come to stay.”
Soyinka said he believed Amotekun was just one out of the long list of plausible solution to insecurity in the south west region. He urged the governors to also start thinking of how to end hunger in the region
“Amotekun is only a part of the story. It should not be the only solution to insecurity. We should move from Amotekun to Awosikun. In other words, we should start thinking in terms of how to feed our own people.”
The scholar had earlier described the scheme as an unexpected New Year present.