Clement Adeyi, Osogbo
Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria has adjudged the South West Security initiative, codenamed, Amotekun as a Christian agenda intended to demonstrate power dominance over the Muslims.
Vice President of the council, Sheikh Hadiyatullah, who stated this, yesterday in Osogbo, Osun State, during a press conference, pointed out that the initiative was another “elusive way of establishing a Christian-dominated state police force whose affairs would be designed and determined from the church at the expense of the Muslims majority in the region.”
He lamented that the six South West governors, who created Amotekun, out of whom five are Christians, isolated the Muslims who constitute the majority in the region as well as the faithful of other religions, from the programme as they failed to carry them along before they went ahead to inaugurate it.
Hadiyatullah stressed that the promoters of the security outfit had displayed low understanding of the doctrine of religious tolerance in the country.
While emphasising that Amotekun had a Christian religion coloration, he claimed it was coined from Jeremiah 5:6 where the scripture referred to lion, wolf and leopard as battle and security forces.
He added that exclusion of the Muslims from the security agenda was “the height of rude insults to the religious sensibilities of the Muslims.”
Meanwhile, Osun State Government has faulted the Sharia council’s stance because there was no evidence that religious body, especially Christian, was a part of meetings that eventuated in the creation of Amotekun.
The government insisted that Amotekun did not have any religious coloration.
Governor Adegboyega Oyetola, who through his spokesman, Ismail Omipidan, made the clarification in Osogbo, yesterday, added that the allegation that Amotekun was a Christian agenda was a move to cause disharmony among religious groups and disrupt the peace that Osun State had been reputed for.
He disclosed that Osun had not yet begun recruitment into Amotekun, adding that the social media report that submission of birth certificates from churches by applicants as a condition for recruitment lacked basis and a figment of imagination by the pedlars.
Regardless, South African chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC) has appealed to the Federal Government to give necessary support for Operation Amatekun to survive.
The party described Amatekun as a great initiative that requires necessary intervention for timely delivery.
It made the appeal in a statement jointly signed by its Chairman, Bola Babarinde, and Secretary, Folorunso Fasina, yesterday.