‘Go back to sleep’, Soyinka tackles FG over Operation Amotekun

Professor Wole Soyinka has slammed the Federal Government over its position on the establishment of a security outfit in the South-Western part of the country, saying the sleeping government should not tell the governors what to do about insecurity in their region.

The South West Security Network better known as Operation Amotekun was launched on Thursday, January 9, 2019, to tackle insecurity in the region.

But few days after the outfit was launched, Abubakar Malami, the Attorney-General of the federation described the outfit as illegal, saying security remains the exclusive preserve of the Federal Government.

Reacting to Malami’s position on Amotekun, Soyinka said Amotekun has come to stay because it's a result of collective consciousness by people of the region.

While speaking at a press conference in Lagos on Wednesday, January 15, 2020, Soyinka said that he refused to believe that any serious government would raise any objection to such an initiative.

“Our responsibility as a citizen is to take actions against events, phenomenon which militate against our existence, security, productivity and dignity as human beings.

“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.

“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.”