Hon. Dcn Kehinde Olatunde is the member representing Akinyele Constituency 2 at the Oyo state House of Assembly and a member, House Committee on Security Matters.
In this exclusive interview with Ametrocopy, he shared his opinions on security lapses in the state, causes and possible solutions.
What is your assessment of the security situation in Oyo State?
When we want to talk about the security situation in Oyo State, we start wondering how we got to where we are now. It’d been so bad. The main issue about the security lapses is that people have started politicking with it. Security is every man’s business and we never had it so bad like this. The governor is trying. He is a man of the people and he doesn’t want hardship on people and with this, he has been trying to see if peace can be used to settle this security lapses. That’s one of the basic steps he’d been taken and that’s one of the reasons he is the one that actually championed the establishment of Amotekun and in the south west i.e in Ogun state, Ekiti State, Ondo State and Osun state, the number of Amotekun personnel that has been recruited in this four states are about 350. Here in Oyo State, we recruited about 1500 and that is to let you know how the security of the state is very dear to the governor’s heart.
Politics aside, where we actually got this thing wrong was when initially when these things started and the man at the helm of affairs did not utter any word. So, those people believed that this is their government. They can do whatever they want to do. I can remember when President Obasanjo was the president of Nigeria, when OPC were causing trouble in the South West here. He didn’t do anything. First of all, he disbanded OPC because it was illegal and he ordered that anywhere, any group of people that gather or having meeting or causing troubles in the name of OPC, he ordered the armed forces to shoot at them. The current Are ona Kakanfo, Gani Adams was the leader of the fraction OPC that was doing wahala then. I remember when he was arrested, he had only a trouser on himself and singlet and he was handcuffed. Then you can see when somebody like the president is coming out saying unreasonable words and vocabularies that can cause the bridge of peace in the country and nobody is checking him. You’ll find out that, that was the main reason why they believed that they are above the law. That was why everything has degenerated into what it is today. I don’t know whether you saw the video of one of the House of Assembly members, Peter Ojedokun. He is from Igangan area. The video actually happened last year when he was having an encounter with a Fulani guy. If you see the way he was talking, it was as if that place was his birth right. Nothing like that can happen over there in their own place. Infact, the kind of conversation that went between him and honourable Peter. They would have hacked the person down. That is the present situation we have found ourselves and it is not a palatable situation at all and it can cause another civil war if it is not being addressed.
As it is now, do you think a solution can come from the federal government?
That is it, that is where the problem lies. This is my compound, nobody can just intrude and say that ‘I want to keep something in your compound’ no, you have to take permission from me. Like I say, we never had it so bad see what happened in Benue, see how many people lost their lives. I have some videos on my phone here where these guys marched their cattles to a farm, heaps of yams have already been harvested and they were peeling the yam and giving it to their cattles to eat. What some people toiled for, their labour. It’s not something that when a normal person looks at it, you will reason and find out that it is not palatable at all. It is not the best.
So now, how do we get out of this and ensure peace especially in Oyo State because it is not only the problem of the herdsmen that is contributing to the problem of insecurity in Oyo State. We have hoodlums doing their own on one side, armed robbers and the likes according to the report that we heard so what steps can be taken to ensure that the lives and properties of the Oyo State residents and citizens are protected?
I remember that during the first tenure of Buhari’s government, there was this thing that was going around about the Minister of Information, Lai Muhammed coming up that they are importing grass from Brazil. In Developed countries, there are ways they raise their livestock. There are ways they raise them. All these leaders, they traveled to almost all these countries, they should, if it is to invite people to come, experts to come to see how we can have grazing lands. We have lands. How will you now come into somebody’s water melon farm and start grazing.
As I’m talking to you, I have land that I can use to farm, this has been a bone of contention, how do I go about this thing ? What should I even plant on it? How am I sure that if I’m visiting that farm one day, they will not just waylay me and just ambush and do whatever ? It is high time that the government woke up. Like chief Awolowo said when he was alive that you are raising your own children, taking them to Oxford, Cambridge and doing all these. Meanwhile, some children are here lavishing in poverty. Those children that are lavishing in poverty will be the one that will be disturbing your own children that you are taking to the UK. That is it. We don’t have any other country. It has happened now. Most of them cannot travel abroad. They are here. So, If they had developed this place, maybe three quatres of what we are seeing over there… I have a friend that stays abroad. Whenever he comes to Nigeria and there is power outage. There was a day he was telling me that,Tunde, assuming that all these years that we had been talking about this NEPA issue, let’s say there is no electric pole in the whole of Nigeria not to talk of the lines that we are just starting. Since all these years we ought to have gotten over the issue of power outage. So the government, most especially the federal government, where do they get this Ak47 riffles that they use? we say that they are from neighbouring countries. If it is our border that we are going to work on first, work on something. If it is the border that is porous, okay, make sure that the borders that we have, we want to spend this amount to make sure that it is secured. Work on it. What are you doing about the border? Ammunitions are being brought from Iraq. The Iraq civil war was the one that is infiltrating ammunition into Nigeria. What are you doing? Is it not through the border that this people are coming in? So, you need to do something. The main thing lies on the federal government. They own the soldier. They own the police.
Let me tell you one thing, the newly appointed chief of army staff, it was reported that Buratai removed him from the formation because he was not competent and it is that person you are now putting all the army in Nigeria under now. So what result are you going to get from there? It is just as if we are just deceiving ourselves.
Now, the suggestion by the former Gov. Adebayo Alao Akala that Gov. Seyi Makinde call for a council meeting where ideas can be shared and suggestions made on how to secure the state. What can you say to it?
It’s not a bad idea because two heads are always better than one. Like you’ve said Otunba Akala is a former police officer coupled with his experiences. If people like Gen. Oladayo Popoola that has ruled the state, Olurin and co can also be opted into that meeting. They are military officers. It is not a bad idea two heads are better than one. They have council of state in the federal where all former head of states converge and put heads together even to the point of Gowon, Obasanjo and all of them. Even Sonekan that spend less than two or three months so, it is not a bad idea. It is a very good one because it is a critical time that we just have to move this state forward. A promising son of the soil will just be hacked down, and nobody is being apprehended. Nobody is being questioned for it. Talking about Doc. Aborode. It is not done.
Hon. Sir, Akinyẹle constituency 2 where you represent, what steps have you taken to protect the people especially the farmers in that area?
Well, I’ll say that the first thing that we did or that I contributed to is this anti-grazing law. But you see, When you make laws like this, it is very easy but the implementation is the issue and like the question you’ve asked me, if I want to be sincere with you, there is nothing that can be done than this Amotekun issue. That’s why we have the formation and with the economy of the state and the country at large, this Amotekun issue is just a vehicle per local government. So, what we did was to get ten motorcycles to complement the vehicles and sincerely yours. If we want to say the truth, we can say that at least to some extent, this Amotekun stuff has been trying to balance things to some extent. That’s how far we have gone with the Amotekun and the local vigilantes.
There is so much and so little you can do because majorly your role in all these should be by way of legislation, it should be what you can do from the House of Assembly. You have talked about the anti grazing law and with the publicity that trailed the bill as it moved on the floor of the house, but where did it stop? Why is it taking the executive so long to pass? I don’t know what stage you’ve got to before this Sunday Igboho’s issue came up.
You see, like i said earlier, to make this thing work lies solely on the Federal government because to implement this law. This law can only be implemented by them.
As it is now, it has been passed. So, to implement it lies on the police and who owns the police? Who controls the police? The Federal government.
I beg to disagree with that because I know that when it comes to this issue the excuse especially from the executive at the state is always that they don’t control the police but as a journalist, i can tell you that that’s not the truth. They have the joint civilian task force. They know how to use it. So if there is a law in your state that everybody knows that so so so is pure illegality, how can you tell me honestly that the governor doesn’t know what to do if someone is grazing openly.
That’s what I’m saying, there are alot of things that me and you can just be looking at that this thing, if you do this thing like this there are alot at the back of it.
How?
Good. The civilian joint task force that you are talking about, the operation burst. Who are the people that are in operation burst? Army, police, and civil defense. Who is paying them?
I know that there is a portion of the security vote that Is allocated to them.
Yes, but before the commander of operation burst will go out, he will get a kind of clearance from the garrison commander before the garrison commander will give the commander of the operation burst whatever, he will get a clearance from the GOC.
Sir, so if truly it’s now an illegality for people to be grazing openly in Oyo State it seems to say that herders are criminals. Some of them have violated the laws of the state.
Is it that they don’t know that? Like i said, have we had it so bad like this? When Jonathan was here there was not even an army general. Was it as bad as this?
Are we now saying that the governor is completely helpless in this situation?
See, what I said was this, the first moment this thing started and the man at the helm of affairs refused to talk. Everybody was commenting but he did not utter a word. That gave those people the muscle.
A lot of people believe His Excellency, Gov Seyi Makinde, has not done enough and he was relatively silent on the insecurity issues particularly in Ibarapa axis before this whole Igboho issue came up.
He was not silent and that’s what I’m telling you.
But he wasn’t as vocal as one would have expected.
I’m in this government. I was with him one day and something like this happened, a call was made to the relevant authority that tonight I want you people to move to certain and certain places. Like I told you, the one that was called will get clearance from another, who will get clearance from this one. The last one will say that he is expecting a signal from the whatever headquarters. And all these people that we are talking about, they deal with order go, come back.
So, why don’t we now concentrate our efforts on empowering Amotekun. Like you said they have just one vehicle per local government.
This Amotekun that you are talking about. Do you know that recently they made some arrest and after arresting those culprits, they took them to Iyaganku police station and the police refused to collect them, to detain them.
But as the legislature was there nothing you could do? There was nothing the Oyo State House of Assembly could do?
There was nothing, wait, the 1999 constitution is the major problem of this country, until that book is discarded. Had it been the constitutional conference that Jonathan set up had worked it might have helped Nigeria a bit but this constitution that we are using, is the problem of this country. So, It is illegal for the Amotekun to carry arm, to detain, they apprehend, take them to the police, the police refused to detain them. Where do you take those people to? And these are the people that have been causing troubles at Yemetu, Oje.
One of them even confirmed that he fired a shot and some people died and the police is not taking them.
So are we saying now that there is very little even Amotekun can do as the case may be?
Well,the type of people that were recruited into Amotekun. Yorubas will say that ‘Omo ina la n ran si ina’, we actually went into the locals to recruit. There was this case at Oyo, it’s a cult group and they’ve been terrorizing people thinking that nobody can arrest them even the police dare not go to where they were. It was the Amotekun that went there and arrested them. All the charms that they had on, everything they have with them, they were removing it but the last stage of this thing is prosecution. Who will prosecute?
That’s what I was saying that there is a point to which Amotekun itself can act. At the end of the day the buck stops on your table or the table of the government, the legislative and the executives. Those are the people that are closer to power.
I cannot rewrite the constitution of Nigeria. I don’t have the power to rewrite it. If we don’t want to deceive ourselves we just have to come back to the drawing table and see how we can move this country forward.
You are honestly telling me now that his Excellency, Gov. Seyi Makinde did all he could contrary to the believe and general perception that he didn’t do enough and it was only when Igboho went in defiance to defend the people that he now came up to address the people.
The day Igboho first went to those people, immediately, he left, 30mins after he left some people were hacked down and if you see the video of those that were hacked down, it was terrible.That was when I said some calls were made that tonight we must take over that place. It is an order not a request.
What about the members of the House of Assembly, i know you would have heard over the news how the people of Ibarapa where the speaker is from complained about what they called, safe to say, his docility as far as this issue of security is concerned, they said they’ve not been seeing him.
That’s not true.
But that was what the people said and I’m sure you heard.
At the inception of this wahala, he formed an association Ibarapa Kan where they have series of meetings those in government, including the chairman of water corporation where they have meetings and at these meetings, they personally empowered Amotekun they have there in their own little way. That is what they can do but they can not go there and the speaker can not give order, he cannot tell the CP to move his men, he cannot tell operation burst to move to any place. No, what I’m telling you, we all know what the problem is where things are lacking in this system. We know it and that is what I’m just saying, we don’t have any other country but this country so we need to do something.
Hon. sir, we understand what is generally perceived as some of the flaws of President Muhammed Buhari but the onus now is really on our leaders especially those at the helm of affairs to make a difference.
Who are those leaders? Wait, the Oyo State House of Assembly in the PDP are just 26. Do I have a rifle in this house? Even locally made rifle, I don’t even have it.
Are you honestly saying that you have pursued this thing with the full extent of your empowerment…
As the member of the house of committee on security matters we’ve gone to visit the DSS, the CP that just left before all these incidents happened. I know how many security meetings that we called. But who are to enforce these things? Like I told you, when you look at the service chiefs look at the ones that just left, Gen. Olonisakin is just a figure head.
Hon, what you are saying in essence is that this is a spill over of a national problem that has gone beyond the grassroots?
See I grew up under the tutelage of the army. I know what I’m talking about so this is more of national… I lived the the life of an army in the army barracks and all these things. Army are not trained to take chances. Look at what happened in Odi, when Obasanjo was there. You can imagine what happened. Obasanjo said the officer in charge came to brief him he said he was writing and the man was briefing him, he was listening to him. When the man finished, he said he didn’t utter a word, he said by his gesticulation the guy knew what he was supposed to do. How can you say you butcher a colonel in the army. During the Kano riot Ret. Gen. Rasaki was the commanding officer he got there, he first went on radio and television and said that the army are not here to arrest but to kill. They are trained to kill and they went into action, they arrested the kingpin of the Maitasini and he said they handed him over to the police and the army left. During Shagari, when they. killed four Nigeria soldiers he said he was in the troop that by the time they wanted to enter Yaoundé the Cameroon capital, that was when they were called back they said they were slaughtering Cameroonian soldiers. How can somebody now come, you’ll say you are entering into police barracks and disarming army.
What you are saying now is that this is more of a national problem that is now getting emboldened in Oyo State.
It is not a national problem. It is a tribal problem that has degenerated into a national problem. One tribe trying to pamper its own against others.
What is the way forward? What do we do? What should we expect from the government, the Oyo State House of Assembly in the coming months? Should we expect some kind of move?
What we can only get from the House of the Assembly is what we are getting from them now. We will let you Journalists know that we are not in support of what is happening. We totally disagree with what is happening we don’t like it, we don’t want it. We want the safety of our people and their properties. We will keep on saying that but to make this thing work lies on the armed forces.
Finally, what is the Oyo State House of Assembly, that is through the House Committee on Security matters going to do to further empower Amotekun especially in terms of budgeting. Is there a budget for Amotekun? How do you get them more vehicles? How do they get trained?
Like the way it is now, Gov. Makinde, apart from the issue of the security threats, I know that the security vote, more and more of it will go into this Amotekun issue.
Is there anything else that can be done as regard the issue of Amotekun not carrying guns and then the issue of arrest and prosecution.
To carry gun is in the constitution, the type of gun that they can carry is the one you load once and fire, then, load again. That’s the one that they are expected to carry and the people they are going to meet are carrying AK47.
So, what do you think is the way forward?
I watched a news on Channels about Gringory’s son that was kidnapped. He was telling us the experience that they had, that the only thing that made them to be released was the pressure from the Armed forces, from the police, he said because where they were when those kidnappers started seeing helicopters very close to where they were, they had to flee. Can Amotekun buy helicopters? So, this is exactly where I’m going. The federal government needs to sit up.
And in the absence of that, the constitution must be amended or reviewed.
Thank you very much sir.
Thank you.
